This year's donations will be used to fund 14 additional promising projects conducted by MedUni Vienna scientists. These are primarily aimed at advancing the development of personalised therapies in the context of cancer research. The fact that cancer mortality is falling, even though the number of new cases is rising, is largely due to advances in cancer research made possible by the results of basic research.
In Austria, around 42,000 people are diagnosed with cancer every year; this figure includes slightly more men than women. In both sexes, malignant tumours are the second leading cause of death after cardiovascular disease. The most common cancers in Austria are breast cancer in women and prostate cancer in men. Although the number of new cases is rising, cancer mortality is falling. Relative three-year survival has been steadily increasing over the past decades, averaging around 65% in the diagnosis period 2013 to 2016 (source: Austrian Cancer Report 2021).