In the last 30 years the survival rate for brain cancer has not changed. Each year 1600 people will be diagnosed with brain cancer, and 10 out of every 12 will not survive the first five years.
When Carrie Bickmore recently won the Twinings Design Challenge she used her acceptance speech to raise awareness of brain cancer and its survival rates.
Bickmore said she set up Carrie’s Beanies 4 Brain Cancer after she discovered how many people were suffering with brain cancer – just like her late husband – and that brain cancer research only received 4% of federal health funding.
“In the two years since we set up the foundation we have raised over $1.2 million,” Bickmore said. “And we have just awarded $850 000 of that granting to our research institutes throughout Australia.”
Bickmore said the money is now being placed into the hands of people who will discover effective new treatments that will buy families more time together, and hopefully, more time to find a cure.
“If you were told 30 years ago that you had brain cancer, your survival rate is the same as now – and that’s crazy,” she said.
“If you look at many of the other cancers – through money that has been poured into those cancers – the survival rates are incredible now.”
