A total of around 3,900 runners, including numerous companies with running teams, as sponsors or cooperation partners, supported cancer research at the Medical University of Vienna with their participation. Around 270,000 euros were raised for science at this year's 18th Cancer Research Run. As every year, 100 per cent of the donations will go towards cancer research at MedUni Vienna. In this way, more than 60 scientific projects aimed at improving the diagnosis and treatment of tumour diseases have already been supported since the charity event began.
Currently, 14 promising projects are being funded by MedUni Vienna scientists. These are primarily aimed at advancing the development of personalised therapies.
In Austria, around 45,000 people are diagnosed with cancer every year, with men being affected slightly more frequently than women. In both sexes, malignant tumours are the second most common cause of death after cardiovascular diseases. While the number of new cases has been rising for around two decades, cancer mortality is falling. Relative survival five years after diagnosis has increased significantly in recent years: while it was 54% in the diagnosis period from 1992 to 1996, it rose to 62% in the period from 2014 to 2018 (source: Statistics Austria 2024).
This positive development is largely due to advances in cancer research. The results of basic research are being used to improve diagnostic and therapeutic procedures and enable new treatment and prevention concepts.
