(NAPSI)—There’s encouraging news for people facing—or who may one day face—a cancer diagnosis: A new annual report highlights how federally funded research discoveries are fueling the development of new and even more effective ways to prevent, detect, diagnose and treat cancer.

As highlighted in the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Cancer Progress Report, one area of cancer treatment in which we are making extraordinary progress is immunotherapy. In the past decade, the number of immunotherapeutics has increased almost fivefold and the number of types of cancer that can be treated by at least one immunotherapeutic has more than tripled.

Among the key advances outlined in the report are:

• Twenty-two treatments for cancer newly approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or approved for new types of cancer between Aug. 1, 2017, and July 31, 2018.
• Decline in cancer death rate by 26 percent for U.S. adults, a reduction that translates into almost 2.4 million cancer deaths avoided, according to the latest data.
• Decline in cigarette smoking rate among U.S. adults to its lowest—14 percent—since the mid-1960s, thanks to public education and policy initiatives.

The report also highlights research areas where there are significant gaps in our knowledge, such as the underlying causes of cancer health disparities, and the need for all sectors of the biomedical research community to come together to address this critical issue. Notably, the report illustrates how unwavering, bipartisan support from Congress, in the form of increased funding for the NIH, NCI, FDA and CDC, is vital if we are to keep the momentum at which we make lifesaving progress for everyone.

“The unprecedented progress we are making against cancer has been made possible largely through basic research,” said Elizabeth M. Jaffee, M.D., president of the AACR and deputy director of The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. “A continued increase in federal funding for both basic and clinical research will allow us to make major headway moving forward.”

The full report, and all seven prior editions, are freely available at http://cancerprogressreport.org.

“The unprecedented progress we are making against cancer has been made possible largely through basic research. http://bit.ly/2pg7gLq”