Analysis: Map reveals the cancers which the public do not care about

Charities claim work on biggest killer is seriously underfunded as study shows only 3 per cent of spending is put towards finding a cure

Nobody likes a smoker, especially a sick one. Children dying of leukaemia, yes, young mothers struck down by breast cancer, certainly, but elderly smokers, often poor and sometimes disreputable, do not set the collection tins of charities rattling.

The lack of public sympathy for Britain's shrinking but still considerable band of smokers was revealed yesterday in figures showing that lung cancer attracts only 3 per cent of all research spending on cancer, but accounts for 22 per cent of cancer deaths, or 35,000 people a year.

Breast cancer takes almost 18 per cent of research funding – the highest proportion for any cancer and testimony to the lobbying power of the breast cancer charities – but accounts for 8 per cent of deaths. More women die of lung cancer than of breast cancer. Leukaemia attracts 17 per cent of available funds but accounts for even fewer deaths – just 3 per cent of people who die of cancer.

Lung cancer's poor showing in the research stakes is at least partly due to the stigma attached to it, scientists said yesterday. Sufferers are widely seen as having brought it on themselves.

The first "map" of research has revealed the imbalance in the attention given to the different cancers. Published by the National Cancer Research Institute, an umbrella body of government organisations and cancer charities, its aim is to demonstrate where the gaps in research are.

The map shows that in April 2002, a total of £257m was committed to 1,864 projects. This does not include spending on buildings, laboratories and the contribution from the NHS in supporting research, which brings the total to £335m.

Adding research by the pharmaceutical industry, which is estimated at £134m, the total spent seeking a cure for cancer is between £450m and £500m a year.

Responding to the figures, Dame Helena Shovelton, chief executive of the British Lung Foundation, said: "At long last there is recognition that lung cancer is seriously underfunded. It is the UK's biggest killer and we urgently need to address the need for early diagnosis to reverse this trend.

"People don't realise that more women in the UK die from lung cancer than breast cancer. The millions of pounds being put into breast cancer research now means that people have an excellent chance of beating it. In contrast, people with lung cancer have only a 5 per cent chance of surviving the first year."

One reason for the neglect of lung cancer was that people were often diagnosed when the disease was well advanced, which made it more difficult to study because there was less time to observe the effect of new treatments. It was also a difficult condition to research.

But now the figures had revealed the imbalance, efforts would be made to correct it, Dr Liam O'Toole, administrative director of the research institute, said.

"It is the first time we have had a clear collective picture of the research being done. We believe this exercise is a world first. It will enable us to see if there is anything that we should be doing better. We will now look at specific areas, starting with lung cancer."

Dr O'Toole said the large sums spent on leukaemia research, relative to the small number of deaths, was testimony to the success of the research. Whereas a diagnosis of leukaemia a generation ago was a death sentence for a child, today most children survive and live normal lives.

Successes on this scale against cancer have been few, however. Thirty years after Richard Nixon, then the US President, launched a "war on cancer" and committed billions of dollars to finding a cure, cancer is still the Western world's biggest killer, along with heart disease, and its incidence is rising independently of the ageing of the population.

Critics have attacked the cancer research establishment in the past for promising much and delivering little. The research map published yesterday shows that the largest slice of funding is still being spent on biological research (41 per cent), understanding the basic mechanisms of cancer, rather than developing new treatments (22 per cent), or means of preventing it (2 per cent).

Yesterday, however, scientists defended their record. Sir Paul Nurse, chief executive of Cancer Research UK and a Nobel prize winner for his work on the cell cycle, said: "Cancer is enormously complicated. The problem was totally underestimated by Richard Nixon. Cancer comprises over 200 diseases, not one. There are several hundred genes influencing cancer. This is an immensely difficult problem and not to realise that is to duck the problem."

Asked to provide an example of the fruits of cancer research, Sir Paul cited the drug Glivec, approved earlier this month by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence as a treatment for chronic myeloid leukaemia.

Glivec was a new kind of cancer drug because it had been developed from first principles based on an understanding of cell mechanisms and signalled a new era in cancer treatment. Previous cancer drugs have been discovered by trial and error rather than by building them up, piece by piece, to target a specific aspect of the cell's function. "It may not help many people [because it is not one of the commoner cancers], but it is a paradigm shift," Sir Paul said.

Professor Mike Richards, the Government's cancer tsar, said the overall death rate from cancer was falling by 1-2 per cent a year. This was not solely due to earlier diagnosis, which can give the impression that people diagnosed with cancer are living longer, when in reality any treatment they receive will fail to extend their lives. "That deaths are falling indicates to me that we are doing something right," he said.

The biggest successes were against breast cancer and lung cancer. Britain had the highest death rate in the world from breast cancer until a decade ago and has seen the sharpest fall since, by around 20 per cent in 10 years, Professor Richards said.

The advances had been made chiefly through wider use of the drug tamoxifen, and better use of chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Deaths from lung cancer have also fallen fast, especially among the upper social classes, who were the first to give up smoking. Sir Paul Nurse claimed this as a victory for cancer research, which he argued had only failed to deliver because governments had failed to act on the findings.

Sir Paul said: "As a result of research carried out in this country, we could almost eliminate lung cancer because we know the primary cause is tobacco. But a ban on tobacco advertising has not been implemented. This is a good case where researchers have done their job but it has not been properly applied."

The Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Bill, which bans tobacco advertising, last night completed its final stage in the Commons before becoming law – 40 years after the Royal College of Physicians published conclusive evidence linking smoking with lung cancer.