In May of 2013 I lost my dear & extraordinary mum to pancreatic cancer; a disease I knew very little about. It turns out most people, including the specialists, don't know a great deal more.

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is 5th leading cause of UK cancer death with the worst survival rate of all cancers yet it receives only 1% of the total research spend on cancer. 5 year survival of 3% hasn’t improved in over 40 years!

PC lags behind. More funding/more public awareness is vital so that progress can be made in earlier detection and, ultimately, better survival rates. Often termed the “silent killer”, many of PC’s symptoms mirror other less critical illnesses. Sometimes GPs may not recognise these early enough, looking first at other possible causes resulting in lost time before diagnosis. By this time, in many cases, the prognosis is terminal. This is exactly what happened to my mum.

Please help me in trying to prevent another 40 years passing without change.