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The statistics about brain tumours

These brain tumour statistics are shocking. We believe that fighting brain tumours on all fronts through research, awareness and support is the only way to save lives, reduce long-term disabilities and help everyone with a brain tumour and their families.

The statistics

  • Brain tumours are the biggest cancer killer of children and adults under 40
  • Over 12,000 people are diagnosed each year with a primary brain tumour, including 500 children and young people – that’s 33 people every day
  • Over 5,300 people lose their lives to a brain tumour each year
  • At least 88,000 children and adults are estimated to be living with a brain tumour in the UK currently
  • Brain tumours reduce life expectancy by on average 27 years – the highest of any cancer
  • Just 12% of adults survive for five years after diagnosis
  • Research offers the only real hope of dramatic improvements in the management and treatment of brain tumours. Over £700m is spent on cancer research in the UK every year, yet less than 3% is spent on brain tumours

Watch an overview of our new strategy for 2021-2022

Find out how we’re leaning into our strengths and our community, to make sure we can continue to drive urgent progress for everybody affected by a brain tumour.

Our values

Our values underpin our culture, the way we do things and what we believe in. The way we work is:

Community First

We will always centre the needs of our community-first – ensuring that our work is meaningfully informed by those with lived, learned and practiced experience and that they are the driving force behind the decisions that we make.

We’ll encourage all voices to be heard, and we will be united in our purpose – cultivating a sense of belonging and inclusivity for everyone and creating the change that is needed, together.

Collaborative

We choose collaboration as a route to delivering the best outcomes. We choose to lean on each other, share openly and include intentionally – as we know that we’re stronger together.

We’ll actively seek out and support diverse perspectives and utilise expertise and knowledge wherever it exists.

We choose to operate without an ego and as part of an eco-system so everyone can join in.

Bold

We are unapologetically true to ourselves and our mission. We will be courageous and we’ll think bigger – we have to, as there is no time to waste.

We’ll be confident and relentless in challenging the status-quo, even when that means making difficult decisions.

We’re determined, focused and unstoppable.

Innovative

We are creative and adopt a growth mind-set, constantly using our experience and imaginations to find smarter and more effective ways to make progress.

We’re unafraid to think differently, to find new ways to solve old problems and embrace agile principles that allow us to ‘test and learn; so we can move at pace in pursuit of our shared vision.


Find out more about our progress since the launch of our strategy. We have taken bold steps towards our goals but there is still so much to do. Please join us and be part of the change.

Put your name to extraordinary progress. 

By leaving us a gift in your Will, even if it’s just 1%, you’ll be choosing to support the future breakthroughs that one day will beat brain tumours.