Area of greatest need

Help us invest money where it is most needed. Give to the area of greatest need and help fund research projects, support services or cancer prevention and advocacy initiatives that are critically important right now.

Supporting people with metastatic breast cancer (advanced breast cancer)

Imagine being told that your cancer has spread and is not curable. Canadians living with metastatic breast cancer are on lifelong treatments, often with debilitating side effects that take a physical and emotional toll on them and their loved ones.

You can give hope to people living with metastatic breast cancer. Invest the funds you’ve raised in critical research to discover new treatments to control the disease and better understand why the disease spreads. Your funds will also connect people with metastatic cancer to others facing the same diagnosis. These connections will strengthen and widen their network and provide them with the information and support to live life to the fullest.

Support and information

Coming to terms with breast cancer can be overwhelming, confusing, and scary. Making sure that a person with cancer can access proper support and information is important.

The funds you raise can help provide emotional support, improving the quality of life for those who have breast cancer. Access to clear and accurate information from a trustworthy source can help people with questions about breast cancer to make informed decisions.

The funds you designate are directed to our Cancer Information Service or our online community, CancerConnection.ca, to make sure no one faces breast cancer alone.

Research - personalized medicine

Just as each person in this world is unique, so are breast cancers. No two breast cancers are identical, as every cancer has a different genetic makeup. Personalized medicine uses information about a person to prevent, diagnose and treat the disease. It helps doctors choose treatments based on a person’s genes or other features of cancer the person has. There is still a lot to learn, but doctors hope that personalized medicine will mean that people with cancer have better outcomes from their treatment with fewer side effects and will stay cancer-free.

Designating the funds you raise to research personalized treatments will help support several of Canada’s most promising breast cancer research projects. For example, immunotherapy is a rapidly growing field in which scientists are working to determine how to harness a patient’s immune system to overcome cancer.

Research - hard-to-treat cancers

On average, an estimated 76 Canadian women are diagnosed with breast cancer every day. Thanks to the tremendous work of researchers, the 5-year net survival for breast cancer for Canadian women is 88%. This means that about 88% of women diagnosed with breast cancer will survive for at least 5 years after their diagnosis.

But some types of breast cancer, like triple-negative breast cancer, can be harder to treat.

Your support will fund critical research into hard-to-treat breast cancers and fund projects that could help treat cancer at an advanced stage.

Research - clinical trials

Clinical trials are research studies that test new ways to prevent, detect, treat, or manage cancer. Clinical trials provide information about the safety and effectiveness of new approaches to see if they should become widely available. Most of the standard cancer treatments used today were first shown to be effective through clinical trials. For example, a clinical trial showed that taking letrozole (a breast cancer drug) can reduce cancer recurrence. This finding changed cancer care worldwide.

Directing the funds you raise to clinical trials can help ensure we can continue to fund trials that lead to groundbreaking discoveries.

^†For offline funds to be counted, bank stamped forms must arrive to CCS no later than Monday, October 17, 2022. Bank stamped forms can be received via mail or scanned to connect@cancer.ca.