On the 18th of May, the European Cancer Patient Coalition Team – TeamECPC will run the Brussels 20 Km Run to raise awareness on Pancreatic Cancer.
In the past, ECPC has already engaged in sport activities to raise awareness on cancer. This year we have a more personal motivation behind the choice of the cause we will uphold: we want to bring support to one of our beloved colleagues who lost her mom to this terrible disease.
Donations can be made in the following account:
ING BELGIUM
IBAN: BE65 3631 2665 8596
SWIFT: BBRU BE BB
Or through our PayPal Account
Pancreatic cancer is the 4th biggest cancer killer in Europe. The survival rate is extremely low: more than 95% of those affected dying of their disease. Despite the terrible figures, this cancer is not well known and insufficiently understood by the scientific community. In fact, pancreatic cancer is the only cancer which has not seen any improvement in terms of European mortality rates for both men and women. The symptoms appear at a late stage, they are very vague and can be easily mistaken for other diseases. This leads to critical delays before finally receiving the correct diagnosis.
JOIN US NOW! SUBSCRIBE AND RUN WITH TeamECPC!
write to mihaela.militaru@ecpc.org/
We need more people to be made aware of the symptoms of pancreatic cancer so as to fasten diagnosis in time for surgery, which is for now the most effective approach towards treating the disease. Furthermore, we need public and private researchers to focus more on this deadly disease, by allocating more resources to pancreatic cancer research.
ECPC’s participation to the run will also mark ECPC’s renewed engagement towards pancreatic cancer patients; ECPC is in fact working towards setting up a new pan-European platform on pancreatic cancer. The platform will follow the example of the Melanoma Independent Cancer Advisory Group – M-ICAB, established by ECPC (http://www.m-icab.org). Considering the low survival rates, the lack of information on pancreatic cancer and the very few existing patient organisations, ECPC wants to create this platform in order to provide information, resources, guides and support to patients all over Europe regardless of their nationality. The platform will also bring together different health stakeholders with the hope that one day we will have measurable improvements.
November is internationally celebrated as the Pancreatic cancer awareness month. However, at ECPC we believe that we should face this issue all year long. Although your donations are important, our fight starts with raising awareness on this important issue. Starting with our colleague we want to show support to those living with or touched by pancreatic cancer. On the 18th of May we will run for those who lost the fight and even more so for those who won’t quit it. Because sometimes, against all odds, we still hope…