Thanks to the Research initiatives of the physicians at Illinois CancerCare as well as those done by physicians all across the country and the patients that have participated in clinical cancer research trials, tremendous progress has been made in the fight against cancer and produced remarkable advances in the way we prevent, diagnose and treat cancer.

Today, in many cases we can humbly say that cancer is not necessarily a death sentence. Cancer is more survivable today than in the past. Overall, cancer deaths are decreasing for the first time in 70 years. More than 10 million Americans who have faced a cancer diagnosis are alive today, compared to only 3 million in 1975. The medical advances achieved by our nation’s best doctors and researchers have given us reasons to hope.

Declining death rates clearly stem from research advances in the early diagnosis and treatment of a variety of tumors. Overall, cancer survivorship has increased from 30 percent in the early 1970s to 64 percent today. The statistics are even better for those diagnosed before the age of 65, with roughly seven out of every 10 surviving their disease in this age group. This is good news as it means that the progress from cancer research has been fast enough to offset a growing and aging American population – two factors that push the number of new cancer diagnoses upward.

There is also reason to think we’re about to make major breakthroughs that could accelerate these trends. The substantial investments in sequencing the human genome are producing advances in understanding how cancers grow – and how we might reverse their spread. These new insights are beginning to be translated into more powerful therapies and diagnostics. If anything, now is the time to redouble our efforts, not scale them back.

The physicians of Illinois CancerCare have played a large role in these cancer research trials. Illinois CancerCare has a history of bringing quality, groundbreaking research trial opportunities to the people of Central Illinois both in the treatment and in the prevention of cancer, which in many cases are the only way to get the very latest treatments available. Illinois CancerCare played a vital part in the early research of several drugs which have become very important in the arsenal of chemotherapy and supportive drugs used nationwide today.

As a nation, we have made extraordinary progress in preventing and treating cancer, but we still have a lot of work to do.