In November 2010 our lives changed forever when my dad, Ian Pollard, was taken from us by pancreatic cancer. He was 56.
Each year around 10,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It's the fifth most common cause of cancer death, causing five percent of all cancer deaths each year.
Pancreatic cancer has the lowest survival rate of all cancers – just 3% of those diagnosed survive for five years. It is also the only cancer that has seen no improvement in this figure over the last 40 years.
For many cancers, five year survival rates have increased hugely since the 1970s. For breast cancer – where large amounts have been spent on research – five year survival rates have increased from 50% to 80%.
Yet despite its high death rate and lack of improvement in chances of survival, pancreatic cancer has attracted little research funding in comparison with many other cancers - currently less than 2% of research funding from the major funding bodies.
I want to help change this story and do whatever I can to support the great people who work hard every day to prevent anyone else having to go through what my dad went through and be lost to this terrible disease and rid the world of the heartbreak and loss it leaves behind.
