Against Breast Cancer

Against Breast Cancer is a charity dedicated to funding pioneering research to improve detection, treatment and increase survival after breast cancer diagnosis. With 1 in 7 women developing breast cancer, breast cancer is the most common cancer in the UK. It doesn’t just affect women though – around 400 men a year are also diagnosed with breast cancer. Improvements in diagnostic tools and treatment has extended the lives of many patients, however secondary spread breast cancer still claims the lives of nearly 12,000 people a year in the UK (that’s around 1000 people a month!). Secondary spread breast cancer (called metastases) occurs when cancer cells break off from the original tumour and travel around the body to establish new tumours. These can arise in other places in the body, such as the lungs, bone, liver and brain, sometimes years after the primary tumour has been treated. The focus of our research is preventing secondary spread, which is the main cause of breast cancer related deaths. By working with expert scientists located in world class universities throughout the UK, our ultimate goal is to stop secondary breast cancer from claiming lives, and our unique approach is to do this by focusing our research on prevention, detection and therapies. Prevention - To understand how diet and lifestyle may increase or reduce the risk of secondary breast cancer developing, to provide evidence-based advice Detection - Designing better tools for the earlier detection and diagnosis of secondary breast cancer Therapies - How the body’s immune system can be harnessed for more effective treatments and ultimately a vaccine against breast cancer.