On December 23, 1971, President Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act into law, officially declaring “War on Cancer.” Nixon declared, “I hope in the years ahead we will look back on this action today as the most significant action taken during my administration.”

The historic legislation supported the National Cancer Institute research programs and launched the United States’ clinical trials programs, among other things. As a result of the past 40 years of research, millions of people with cancer have benefitted from better therapies and increased knowledge of the disease. Since 1990, cancer mortality rates have declined steadily.

But that progress has not translated to brain tumors. Brain tumors are highly complex and able to adapt to and resist treatment. In fact, only one new treatment has been approved in the last 30 years. And brain tumors remain the most devastating of all the cancers, a fact that thousands of families know all too well. But the last 40 years of research has provided vital information that can be used to make a change. 

“Recent advances in understanding cancer at the molecular level have set the stage for a new era of cancer medicine, in which cancer patients will be treated based on their molecular profile,” according to the American Association for Cancer Research’s Cancer Progress Report 2011. “Hard-fought progress over the past 40 years by the entire cancer research community…now provides unprecedented opportunities to translate current discoveries of the critical molecular changes that drive cancer into improved patient care.”

On this 40th anniversary of the declaration of the war on cancer, the National Brain Tumor Society is taking advantage of these opportunities. We are standing together with the brain tumor community - pulling together the tools, putting strategies into action, and working with allies – so that we can look back on these actions as the most significant taken in the war on brain tumors.