Some Cancers are more “fashionable” than others

[Mittens67]

Society consistently appalls me but one of the most depressing things I have come across is how some cancers receive more media coverage than others and so get more donations and better charitable funding. For all I know this also affects nhs funding too because the wealthier charities can afford lobbyists to drive political decisions and policy.
Even the bloody coloured ribbons are divisive. Breast cancer gets pretty pink whilst melanoma gets dull black for christs sake. Who wants to wear black to promote cancer?
Pancreatic cancer which is very challenging to treat gets very little coverage compared to breast cancer or testicular cancer. Are balls and boobs more promotable because both are important to men and as we all know what matters to men is still what drives the world.
Cancer is shite and any help is of course welcome but this popularity contest disgusts me.

You won't care how fashionable it is, but you will be grateful for the variety of treatment options. We lost a family member in her early 20s to a very rare sarcoma (in itself a rare type of cancer). There were so few treatment options - and that's fair enough really because so few people get it the research money can save more people if spent elsewhere. But perhaps if it was as common as breast cancer she'd still be here 15 years later and know my children and her DNs.

That’s very sad and I’m sorry to hear that.my point is that no one with breast cancer cares about pink banners etc. its just the nature of it that more is known about more common diseases and how to treat them.

It definitely affects the treatment I'd say. Where I live I've been told by people who've attended clinics that going for testing/treatment for breast cancer feels like going private because there's so much funding everything is very quick and efficient- short wait times etc.

Yes but those pink ribbons raise so much cash, and that cash translates to the huge range of treatment options for breast cancer.

I think it's based on incidence. More people get breast cancer than pancreatic cancer. Therefore more funding is given to breast cancer research. Not saying it's fair.

The treatments are really gruelling though regardless. I don’t think “fashionable “ is the right term.

What I find quite worrying is that there seems to be a stronger narrative now that all cancer is an impact of lifestyle. I’ve seen it very often on here and definitely amongst younger people. Obviously being healthy is good but being healthy doesn’t mean you won’t get cancer.

This is absolutely true. I have a genetic mutation (Lynch syndrome) that wildly increases my risk of bowel, endometrial and ovarian cancers. Ultimately, I will need a hysterectomy, and have already lost most of my large bowel (and some small bowel) to cancer. I had PIGD IVF to conceive DS because I didn’t want to risk passing the gene on. People literally boggle when I tell them, because they want to believe cancer only happens to those who take lifestyle risks.

The youngest person I know with bowel cancer is 17. Hardly time enough to establish any meaningful risk factors!

Another vile thread attacking people with breast cancer, which no doubt MN will do nothing about again other than say hide. We'll try chemo, radio, Tamoxifen 3 surgeries and having 2 kids with zero support from school, one who is asd and who has never recovered from the complete lack of kindness shown by people. So lucky. And jealous of a pink ribbon, just wow.

No, the opposite - survival rates for childhood cancers are very high compared to a lot of adult cancers

Balls, boobs and skin get more screen time because they are easier for the lay person to spot, you can check yourself. Whereas more internal cancers you cannot and are harder to treat as they are found later.

But surely that is because breast cancer is such a common cancer. It absolutely makes sense for the NHS to devote heavy resources to screening and rapid referrals etc for conditions that affect a lot of people. It is bound to be more erratic for conditions that are relatively uncommon. That doesn't need to be a consequence of publicity or fundraising.

@Penguinsn How on earth is this a "vile thread attacking people with breast cancer"? With the greatest respect, I think you are reading things into this thread that just aren't there.

'Fashionable' is the wrong word FFS . All of us who have had breast cancer have never thought of that type as fashionable , 'Common' would be a better word .

As someone who has had breast cancer, and treatment involving 2 surgeries, chemo, radiotherapy and now medical menopause due to ongoing hormone blocking medication. It is not a fashionable!
I think it's more to do with the prevalence of certain cancers. 1 in 7 women will get breast cancer and 1 in 8 men prostate cancer which increases to something like 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 black men. This also means there are more people available to be part of trials and research so it means treatments can advance quicker.
I think breast cancer is easier to diagnose than some other cancers. Breast cancer charities have been very "loud" getting their message across which has probably helped. For this, I am very thankful.
There is research going on for all cancers with a lot of overlap between some.
The ribbon colours are irrelevant.
I don't think people should make cancers competitive. They are all horrible, treatment is brutal and it certainly changes people physically and mentally.

Our family has Lynch too (other side to the young relative I posted about upthread, that was just shit luck). I'm negative thankfully, but the family tree has to be seen to be believed. Best wishes to you and your family, it's gruelling.

@Vinvertebrate I don’t remember this narrative years ago and I’m not sure what has caused it, the wellness industry? Perhaps it’s a comfort to people. Like you I know a few people who had genetic predispositions & healthy people who had cancer young.

@Penguinsn you have completely misunderstood my post. This is not about “jealousy” it is about inequality in publicity which in turn affects charitable funding.
Clearly this is not the fault of anyone who has cancer and as I had said in my post all cancer is awful and any help is welcome.
I can only think you have been upset by other threads which are nothing to do with mine and I have not seen and therefore came to an incorrect conclusion that I was attacking people with breast cancer which is most definitely not the case.
As someone with cancer myself and as a retired nurse I support everyone with cancer and indeed all the other dreadful life limiting and life changing illnesses and conditions which other posters have quite rightly made comment on.

I agree. Fashionable and trendy are a very poor choice of words when it comes to cancer.

And this is why I put the word in quotation marks

I think the word 'fashionable' was used to refer to the types of cancers that have attracted a lot of interest from fundraising organisations, the media, etc, not to indicate the prevalence of the conditions themselves. It definitely is a very notable phenomenon that cancer itself, and some cancers much more than others, have become a focus for people wanting to campaign and raise awareness.

I think that the promotional focus on cancer may have begun at a time when cancer was deeply stigmatised. People were so afraid of it that doctors would avoid using the word. There was a need to combat that. But it has been well and truly combatted now. So the continuing 'promotional' focus seems easy and glib. Might be good to relocate some of the fashionable messaging to conditions that are still deeply stigmatised, leaving ther sufferers marginalised and alone. Schizophrenia, for example, or other conditions that are poorly understood and tend to make others' recoil.

This is really interesting & encouraging. I'm glad a charity like CRUK is looking into the less common cancers which are harder to diagnose & treat.
It was devastating to hear from the drs when my mum was diagnosed with glioblastoma that treatments hadn't advanced in decades.

The reality is that breast and prostate cancer are both highly prevalent and as such, the research and funding has saved a LOT of lives. I personally know at least 8 women who have had, and survived, breast cancer while still relatively young. These women would all most likely have died 100 years ago.

I completely agree re the lifestyle issue. It really really irritates me. For lots of reasons. In part because the 4 year old son of my friend certainly didn't get cancer, and die, because of lifestyle.

There's also a lot of judgement. My father had a cancer that can often be smoking related. I lost count of the number of times the first question I was asked was "does he smoke". We were in such shock i didnt challenge people, but if it happened again, I would be much snappier in my response and say with something like, "if he did will thay change how you think he should be treated or your level of sympathy?".

I think overall awareness for cancer is generally better too though. People are absorbing messages about noticing unexplained weight loss or fatigue for example.

Is this not like the WWF fundraising for the big ticket animals, tigers and Pandas and rhinos because no one is interested in the tiny yellow spotted ant that is integral to the ecosystem, but by raising money for the cute and fluffy popular animals you also help the less popular as a by product.

Completely agree that some charities do a better job marketing for donations than others. Race for life and the pink ribbons was a stroke of genius from Cancer Research. It does become self fulfilling that the charities that attract more donations can afford to have larger marketing departments, and then attract more donations. It also helps raise money if the survival rates are good as you build a larger pool of advocates.

Some cancers get a lot more publicity and fundraising for them.
This must impact early diagnosis, research, treatment options, support services and increase survival rates.
One of the things I am most angry about is changing cervical screening to looking for a positive HPV result only and not checking cells.
I had early stage cervical cancer with no HPV present, the new screening program will miss people like me and could cause deaths.
Most cervical cancers are caused by HPV but not all,this is a really backward step that has been heralded as an advancement.
I was advised to pay for a private smear test as the NHS wouldnt test my cells unless I had HPV present even with my history.

Sorry about your mum. Regarding there not being advancement for decades it’s only relatively recently that huge advances have been made in cancer genetics - in terms of understanding more about cancer biology and developing technology that lets us do that in a practical way that works for a real life patient/health service rather than a purely academic context.

Increasingly we’re diagnosing (and hopefully treating!) cancers by their genetic profile and we’re learning more and more about which genes to target as potential cures. Unfortunately this obviously does take time and most of the genetic therapy treatments I can think of off the top of my head are in more common cancers (lung, melanoma etc) but that’s because we already knew more about how those tumours develop and spread, there are more cases so more patients and material available for research, the charities tend to be bigger as people tend to donate towards causes that have affected their own life (I can think of 4 people in my social circle who have had bowel cancer for example but I can’t think of anyone indirectly know who has adrenal cancer). That framework was there to easily integrate genetic findings.

I’m not saying this will happen overnight. And I don’t believe there will ever be a ‘cure’ for all cancer as it’s too biologically complex. And sadly, some people will always be unlucky. But as somebody working in this area I’m optimistic.