MEDIA RELEASE - International Brain Tumour Awareness Week

20 October 2007

200,000 PEOPLE WORLDWIDE AFFECTED EACH YEAR BY HIGHLY MALIGNANT BRAIN TUMOURS

Research commissioned by the International Brain Tumour Alliance (IBTA) has identified that annually at least 200,000 people worldwide develop a primary malignant brain tumour, which is one of the most lethal of all cancers.

It further identified that the incidence of primary malignant brain tumours is 3.7 per 100,000 each year for males and 2.6 per 100,000 per annum for females.

No one has yet established why men are more susceptible to developing these brain tumours.

(Further information is available at this page on the IBTA website:
http://www.theibta.org/uploads/file/Statistics.htm )

The research was released at the commencement of the inaugural International Brain Tumour Awareness Week which is being held during 21-27 October.

The IBTA is an advocacy group that brings together brain tumour patients, their caregivers, scientists, clinicians, and commercial companies, with an interest in brain tumours.

IBTA Chair Denis Strangman from Canberra, Australia, who lost his wife several years ago to a glioblastoma brain tumour, said that the statistical estimates while invaluable, were very conservative and probably an underestimation because of inadequate cancer statistical collection resources in some countries.

“There are also many thousands of people who develop so-called ‘benign brain tumours’ that can also be lethal, and there are also hundreds of thousands of people who develop brain metastases as a result of a cancer elsewhere in the body. The overall impact and cost is almost incalculable but it is a very devastating disease” he said.

Dr Elizabeth Hovey, who is Chair of the neuro-oncology group of the Clinical Oncological Society of Australia (COSA), has written to both the Health Minister (Mr Abbott) and Shadow Health Minister (Ms Nicola Roxon) outlining ways in which Australian brain tumour patients and the families could be helped:

• Funding for neuro-oncology clinical care co-ordinators.
                        
• Federal funding for young patients in nursing homes (the Federal Government has made a response to the recent Senate Inquiry on this subject).
                        
• Federal subsidies for families caring for patients at home.

• Funding for collaborative clinical trials for central nervous system tumours; and

• Funding to offset the costs of incorporating statistics and data about benign brain tumours in State Cancer Registries (unlike other cancers, so-called “benign” brain tumours can very often prove lethal and debilitating).

Dr Hovey pointed out that this year had seen the emergence of a new Australian-based organisation to coordinate collaborative clinical trials for CNS tumours called COGNO (Cooperative Trials Group for Neuro-Oncology) which has recently been successful in its grant application to Cancer Australia for funding.

Dr Hovey said that while the number of malignant primary brain tumours in Australia was only about 1500 new cases each year they had a disastrous and disproportionate effect on patients and their caregivers, particularly because they struck the young as well as the elderly. Brain tumours competed with all leukaemias as being responsible for the greatest number of cancer deaths among children under 15 years of age.

According to a study commissioned by the Cancer Council NSW and released earlier this year the financial costs faced by households where there was a member with a brain tumour were $149,400, which was almost 50% greater than households with the next most expensive cancer and over three times the average cost faced for all cancers. This estimate relates to a reduction in income and the increase in out of pocket expenses.

Leading international brain tumour researcher Professor M.J. van den Bent of the Netherlands has said that despite recent advances, a lot has still to be done. “Only joint efforts will help us to improve the outcome for this gruesome disease … Better treatments are urgently needed and also an increased awareness of what these tumours cause for patients that look healthy but who nonetheless often suffer from a dramatic loss of function, and what consequences this has for their relatives,” he said in a statement from Rotterdam marking the Awareness Week.

BACKGROUND ABOUT BRAIN TUMOURS:

• There are over 120 different types of brain tumour.

• There are two main categories of brain tumours: primary and metastatic.  Primary brain tumours can either be malignant (of varying degrees of aggressiveness) or non-malignant (so-called “benign”).

• Tumours are diagnosed and then classified according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) grading system which ranges from Grade I brain tumours (slow growing, least malignant) to Grade IV brain tumours (rapidly growing and highly malignant)

• The causes of brain tumours are, as yet, largely unknown.

• Brain tumours know no boundaries.  They occur in people of all ages, from very tiny babies to the elderly, male and female, and across all cultural groups around the world.

• The cancers that most commonly metastasize to the brain are lung and breast.

• What is needed: Research into the causes of, and treatments for, brain tumours is seriously under-funded.  Better support is needed for sufferers.  Equitable access to promising new therapies is another area which needs much work.  Understanding the signs and symptoms of brain tumours, and improved availability to a wider range of vital support services including psycho-social support, rehabilitation and palliative care, and access to neuro-oncology care coordinators, are additional goals which most people in the brain tumour community campaign for.

MEDIA RELEASE - Cranes for Brains Day '07

26 October, 2007

THOUSANDS OF CRANES SWARM AUSTRALIAN SCHOOLS

Over 6,500 students from 30 schools Australia wide have joined in today’s Cranes for Brains Day by participating in either an Origami Crane Fold-a-thon or Causal Clothes day.

Cranes for Brains Day is the Cure for Life Foundation’s annual schools fundraiser and this year coincides with International Brain Tumour Awareness Week.

Almost 55,000 cranes were folded today and organisers hope this will help raise over $30,000 to support Cure for Life Foundation research into brain tumours and the unique Paediatric Brain Tumour Rehabilitation Programme at Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick.

Students at each school competed in the one-hour fold-a-thon and prizes were awarded to the child who folded the most cranes in each school. (Note the current national record is an amazing 86 by a child in Perth).

The school that raises the most funds across Australia will also be awarded a pallet of A4 copy paper valued at $1400 from paper sponsor Double A.
International Brain Tumour Awareness Week has attracted support from almost 100 organisations in 23 countries.

Brain tumours are a neglected cancer but research released by the International Brain Tumour Alliance this week indicates that at least 200,000 people worldwide develop a primary, malignant brain tumour each year, for whom the prognosis is grim.

Others develop so-called ‘benign’ brain tumours, which can be lethal, and there are also brain tumour metastases caused by a cancer elsewhere in the body.
Brain tumours are unique as a cancer in so far as they attack both the mental and physical capacity of the person.

The origami crane is Cure for Life Foundation’s symbol, selected because in Japanese legend it represents longevity and wellbeing. The Foundation hopes to make this possible for people suffering from brain tumours.

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