For cancer survivors like me, research cuts are terrifying – especially during a pandemic

For some still in treatment, trials that are their last line of defence against cancer are being cancelled. Those people are understandably terrified

I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015. For me, coronavirus feels familiar. I’m back on lockdown, washing my hands until they’re sore, scared of rapidly spreading disease over which I have little control. Those living with or beyond cancer are familiar with the kind of uncertainty that coronavirus has created throughout the world. Yet they are even more vulnerable than others to it.

Earlier this week, Cancer Research UK announced that it would be cutting funding grants amid the uncertainty caused by coronavirus. Changes created by the pandemic have had a huge impact on research labs – with those working on cancer research being redeployed to deal with the unfolding situation. Not only that, but Cancer Research also revealed that they were anticipating a drop of 20-25 per cent in funding income. It’s a deficit which is impossible to rectify.

The decision to cut funding makes sense. As a trustee of a national charity, I know all too well how hard hit the charity sector has been by the virus: donors simply have less to give. For Cancer Research, the impact goes beyond this. In an open letter written on behalf of the charity, Iain Foulkes, Professor Karen Vousden and Professor Charles Swanton explained: “Universities have closed, laboratories have wound down their activities, experiments have stopped,” and added that “most of our clinical academics, including our Clinical Research Fellows, have been called to the frontline in hospitals all over the country”.

But what does that mean for cancer patients? I was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive type of breast cancer that research has struggled to pin down, known as triple-negative or TNBC. There has been a lot of research money concentrated on TNBC over the last few years, and no doubt some of that has contributed to my good health. Research allowed my surgeon to decide that a mastectomy was the best course of action; research led to the decision I should have chemotherapy after my surgery, rather than before; research told my team I should have radiotherapy to mop up any cancer cells that had defied the other treatments.

Because of research, medical teams are now able to identify gene mutations, such as the BRCA gene. Carriers of this mutation are more likely to develop breast or ovarian cancer in their lifetime but preventative surgery such as a mastectomy (removing the breast tissue) or oopherectomy (removing the ovaries) can reduce this risk dramatically. This research alone will have saved countless lives. Metastatic breast cancer is not curable – but research has made it “treatable”.

For cancer as a whole, research has made treatments kinder and more tolerable. We know now that cold capping can prevent hair loss – arguably one of the most distressing impacts for cancer patients going through chemotherapy. I know many people, women in particular who found cold capping and keeping their hair made cancer all the more bearable. It might seem frivolous, but when you’re fighting for your life, small things feel bigger.

Research means more people are surviving cancer than ever before too. According to Cancer Research themselves, in the 1970s, only a quarter of people survived a cancer diagnosis. Today, more than half will survive for at least ten years. For those of us who have experienced cancer, these statistics are a comfort.

For some still in treatment, trials that are their last line of defence against cancer are being cancelled. Those people are understandably terrified.

Back in 2015, my doctors told me that triple-negative breast cancer is one of the types of breast cancer most likely to recur, and that when it does, there’s a high chance of a metastatic recurrence, meaning it has spread beyond the breast and become “incurable”. Right now, I’m fit and well, but should my cancer ever return and metastasize, my hope is that research could extend my life.

Cancer survivors are perhaps more prepared for this pandemic than most, but cancer patients are not. Cancer doesn’t go away because the world has changed. The issues faced by the cancer community cannot be ignored, simply because there’s something else on the health agenda. Covid-19 may be dominating headlines and taking up resources for now, but a balance must be struck, not in the least because those with existing health conditions are more likely to need more care as a result the virus itself. We have a duty to protect and care for those who are already living with ill health.

I can only hope that the pandemic is controlled and the amazing researchers who have been moved to the front line can return to the lifesaving work they usually do soon. Cancer research must be resume as soon as possible; shortsightedness now could cost lives later.