Cancer Research UK is the world's leading independent charity dedicated to cancer research. We carry out scientific research to help prevent, diagnose and treat cancer. We have discovered new ways to beat cancer that together have saved hundreds of thousands of lives across the world.



Breast Cancer

Cancer Research UK has helped transform breast cancer treatment – now 8 of 10 women survive their disease for more than 5 years, compared with 5 of 10 women in the 1970s. The number of women dying from breast cancer has fallen below 12,000 for the first time in almost 40 years. Hundreds of thousands of women in the UK today are breast cancer survivors thanks to advances in cancer research – we’ve been at the heart of this progress. Find out more about our work here .



Clinical Trials

Cancer Research UK plays a unique and pivotal role in cancer clinical trials in the UK. Last year, we spent over £32 million on cancer trials and related studies. And our groundbreaking work in this area has already led to advances in preventing, detecting and treating cancer that have saved many thousands of lives. Clinical trials are so important because a new treatment cannot be prescribed for patients unless it has been tested in a clinical trial.

Since 1982, we have taken over 100 new drugs into clinical trials. A number of these are now approved cancer treatments. Through our clinical trials we helped to show that Herceptin can improve survival in people with a certain type of breast cancer. Carboplatin, one of the most successful anticancer drugs ever developed and the most widely used drug to treat ovarian cancer. Find out more about our clinical trials here.


Make a Regular Donation Today

Make a difference this year. Your charity donation will help give more families the chance to be together longer. Thanks to advances in cancer research, thousands of people who wouldn't have survived cancer 10 years ago are still here today.

Your regular donation is vital to Cancer Research UK as it will help us plan our research into the future. Please make a regular donation to Cancer Research UK today here .

CancerHelp UK

Here at Cancer Research UK we believe that information about cancer should be freely available to all and written in a way that people can easily understand. CancerHelp UK is the patient information website from Cancer Research UK. We provide a free information service about cancer and cancer care for people with cancer and their families. Please visit our website today.