A Year of Major Advances in Cancer Cited

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"These advancers did not happen by accident," ASCO president Dr. Gabriel N. Hortobagyi, from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, said at the teleconference. "These are the results of the last 30 years of work by investigators and by a major investment this country has made in cancer research."

But cancer research funding itself may well be in crisis, he added. Funding for the NIH had doubled each year up to 2003, but has not been increased since then, he said.

"If you add inflation to that, it is a net cut in funding," Hortobagyi said." We expect next year there will also be a net cut in funding, and that is unfortunate because we are even better prepared today to harvest practical results from the investment in cancer research."

In 2004, the National Cancer Institute, which is part of NIH and funds cancer research, received $4.7 billion, according to NCI. That represents only a 3.2 percent increase over the previous year.

Hortobagyi thinks that rising government deficits and spending in other areas are draining essential dollars from cancer research.

"The decreases in funding are destructive not only because they prevent further progress, but because they result in the dismantling of existing infrastructures for research," he said.

Hortobagyi believes that the National Institutes of Health needs to continue to increase funding just to keep the progress in cancer research at current levels.

"We need a minimum, but consistent, increase of 5 percent per year dedicated to biomedical cancer research," Hortobagyi said. "That will be barely above inflation. It may not ensure growth, but it will ensure maintenance of our current infrastructure and efforts."

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute can tell you more about cancer research (ccr.nci.nih.gov ).