July is Sarcoma Awareness Month, an opportunity to raise awareness about a cancer form that is less known and for which little research is being conducted. Simply, sarcoma is still considered to be the “forgotten cancer.” Efforts to encourage research and drug development are made more challenging due to a lack of awareness and understanding. Friends of Charing Cross Hospital is joining the awareness campaign, along with many organisations like Sarcoma UK, Sarcoma Foundation and Sarcoma Alliance in their communication efforts.
During Sarcoma Awareness Month the campaign aims to further highlight the extraordinary challenges that sarcoma patients face and the need for more sarcoma research and better sarcoma therapies. Sarcomas are rare cancers that develop in the muscle, bone, nerves, cartilage, tendons, blood vessels and the fatty and fibrous tissues.
They can affect almost any part of the body, on the inside or the outside. 10 people every day are diagnosed with sarcoma in the UK
About 3,800 new cases of sarcoma are diagnosed each year in the UK which makes up approximately 1% of all cancer diagnoses.
