Have you marked your calendar for World Cancer Day? Each year on February 4, World Cancer Day unites people from across the globe in the fight against cancer. The initiative is organized by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) to raise cancer awareness and encourage governments and individuals to take action against the disease. Right now, cancer causes more than 8 million deaths globally, and disparities in access to quality care continue to grow between people from different backgrounds and settings.
The Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO (CCF) works hard to support tools for quality care that will help reduce these disparities—no matter who you are or where you live. CCF also funds breakthrough cancer research and trusted education resources for patients and their physicians. Cancer is certainly a growing global burden, but thanks in part to organizations like CCF and ASCO and movements like World Cancer Day, we are making progress.
The theme of World Cancer Day 2015 is “Not Beyond Us,” which the UICC states “will take a positive and proactive approach to the fight against cancer, highlighting that solutions do exist across the continuum of cancer, and that they are within our reach.”
The Conquer Cancer Foundation supports such solutions by funding programs and research that make a real impact on the lives of people with cancer, including research to improve the care of patients in low resource environments worldwide. In particular, CCF’s International Innovation Grant funds innovative research that can have a significant impact on cancer control in low- and middle- income countries. CCF draws on the expertise of the world’s leading cancer doctors and researchers to build a world free from the fear of cancer. Such a world is, in fact, “not beyond us”—but we need the support of generous friends and donors to make it possible.
This February, please join the Foundation in commemorating World Cancer Day by making a donation to improve cancer care worldwide. Visit www.conquercancerfoundation.org/donate to make your gift today.
To learn more about World Cancer Day visit www.worldcancerday.org. ■
© 2015. American Society of Clinical Oncology. All rights reserved.
