Cancer

Data and Facts
In the cause of death statistics, cancer takes second place after cardiovascular diseases. Every fourth death in Germany is caused by cancer. Currently, there are four to five million cancer sufferers, and between 330,000 and 380,000 people contract cancer every year. Among women, breast cancer is in first place, every tenth woman contracts it. In the death statistics, breast cancer is also in first place, followed by cancer of the large intestine, which together make up over one third of cancer-related deaths among women. Among men, on the other hand, new illness rates are highest for lung cancer, prostate cancer and cancer of the large intestines. In the death statistics, the number of deaths from lung cancer is highest with 26.4 percent. The average age at which cancer is contracted is 67.2 (women) and 65.6 years (men). Among children, cancer is the second most frequent cause of death: In Germany, approximately 1,750 children under the age of 15 fall ill to cancer every year, the most frequent types of cancer are leukemia, central nervous system tumors and lymphomas. The early detection of cancer plays a decisive role in the odds of recovery.

What Does the BMBF Do?
Despite new findings, new medications and the introduction of early detection programmes, cancer still represents a great challenge for research. In addition to the further development of the diagnosis and therapy procedures used to date (such as radiation and chemotherapy), the focus of the BMBF funding is on the development of fundamentally new treatment methods. These approaches include, for example, stimulation of the body's own immune response to malignantly altered cells. Above all, the efforts in the area of somatic gene therapy are consistently advanced with the help of the Health Research Programme. One significant pillar of cancer research in Germany is the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg, which is institutionally financed by the BMBF. Significant contributions to the explanation of causes and development of new therapies are also made in other institutionally financed organisations.

Concrete Examples
The BMBF supports cancer research in various areas. Three of the 17 medical competence networks that are funded by the BMBF are concerned with cancer: Pediatric oncology and hematology (Coordination Centre Berlin) Malignant lymphoma (Coordination Centre Cologne) Acute and chronic leukemias (Coordination Centre Mannheim). These networks are being initially funded for three years with 2.5 million EURO each.The leading research and care institutions in Germany in the respective disease areas have joined to develop new therapy options with a coordinated and cooperative research programme and to realise rapid implementation of the research results in the care area.

Since 1995, the BMBF already supports research projects on gene therapy in humans. A total of approximately 45 million EURO has been invested in the development and improvement of molecular biology and specific other technical approaches. The subsequent clinical applicability of the methods is key for the selection of the funded projects. Approximately half of the scientific projects are involved with cancer, and clinical studies have already been performed in some of these projects.

The Cancer Genome Network is one of five disease-oriented genome networks funded by the BMBF within the framework of the National Genome Research Network (NGFN). With the help of functional genome research, disease processes are explained, allowing the identification of new approaches for the development of new therapies, diagnostic procedures and prevention strategies. Approximately 15.3 million EURO will be made available to functional genome research from the UMTS interest income, distributed among five locations.