Australian researchers launch world-first project on rare cancers

Australian cancer researchers on Friday launched a world-first project on less common or under researched types of cancer, involving 30,000 Australians. While the "big five" of lung, prostate, breast, bowel and skin cancer make up 60 percent of all diagnoses, more than half the cancer deaths in Australia are caused by less common or under- researched types of the disease. The Australia Cancer Council on Friday launched the initiative in Victoria, which it said was the first epidemiological-based research project in the world focusing on less common cancers. According to Cancer Council Victoria chief executive Todd Harper, these rare types, such as liver, brain and bone cancer, are killers because little is known about their causes or effective treatment. "They don't attract the same level of funding support from mainstream support organizations, yet generally the survival rates for these cancers is much poorer," Harper was quoted by the Australia Associated Press on Friday. "We simply don't have the same level of knowledge about the early detection and causes that we do with the more common cancers. " The Forgotten Cancers Project hopes to collect data from 15,000 participants - 1,000 sufferers of each of the 15 rare strains - to build a research platform. A further 15,000 people who have a family member suffering from a rare type of cancer will also be involved in the project. Harper said the scientists will collect genetic information as well as behavioral and lifestyle data from the people in the study, adding that it will help the researchers to look at causes of these cancers, hopefully early detection and improvements in treatment. The 15 target cancers for the project are bladder, bone, brain, gallbladder, kidney, leukemia, liver, multiple myeloma, non- Hodgkin lymphoma, oesophageal, pancreatic, small intestine, stomach, thyroid and uterine cancer. Some of these cancers have a survival rate below five percent.