Hello Today is my husband’s birthday. If he had been one of the lucky few to survive pancreatic cancer we would have been celebrating his 56th birthday. Instead, he will be forever aged 48 as that was his age when pancreatic cancer won the battle and took him from us. There was no real hope when Kev was diagnosed – he wasn’t caught early enough for the only curative option which is surgery. Shockingly, only 10% of patients are caught early. Whilst this campaign was primarily aimed at keeping Abraxane on the Cancer Drugs Fund, the Fund ceased to exist in its known form in 2016, hence the lack of updates to this campaign. Sadly, the cessation of the Cancer Drugs Fund took away access to Abraxane for pancreatic cancer patients in England, despite it still being available to patients in Scotland and Wales. However, since then NICE promisingly announced they were reviewing Abraxane as a possible first line treatment but stated that the scheduled review date was not until 2018. The fact still remains that there is a lack of treatment options for pancreatic cancer patients. It appears there are new treatments in the pipeline but it will take time before they are actually available to enhance the clinical offering. I remember the shock of discovering the lack of any improvement in over 40 years when my husband was diagnosed. For that reason my passion for better outcomes will never dwindle. To me it now makes sense to focus our attention on trying to make people aware of the symptoms because early diagnosis is key to survival. In 2015 I asked if Public Health England would consider a Be Clear on Cancer Campaign for pancreatic cancer. The response at the time indicated that this would not be likely. I understand their comment that these campaigns work best when a clear symptom can be communicated, such as a persistent cough for the lung cancer campaign, but herein lies the problem because pancreatic cancer symptoms can be vague and varied and often associated with other less sinister conditions. However, that’s not a reason not to try to make people aware - if we had known the symptoms when Kev first felt unwell who knows, we may have got a diagnosis that led to surgery and he may have still been here today to celebrate his birthday. Given that a national campaign doesn’t appear to be forthcoming, we’ve decided to launch our own campaign to try and make as many people as possible symptom aware. Hope is always important and can be powerful and we want there to be hope for future pancreatic cancer patients so we’ve called the campaign #HopeIsContagious. It’s a simple badge campaign. A purple badge in the shape of a teardrop which represents our hope for a day when tears don’t have to accompany a pancreatic cancer diagnosis. The badge simply shows the word “Hope”. We purposely left pancreatic cancer off as we wanted to start a conversation – this appears to be working, lots of people have reported that they have been asked about their badge and have been able to direct people to the website to familiarise themselves with the symptoms. We’re hopeful that some high profile people may consider wearing a badge in the same way the Sky sports presenters wear the prostate cancer badge. The ever fabulous Julie Hesmondhalgh has shown her incredible support once again by donning a badge and sharing on social media. Our website has the story so far but, most importantly, is a good reference place for symptom information. Please check out the website to become symptom aware and if you can help by spreading the link in any way, we'd be grateful – the more people that become aware of the symptoms the better. This is a long term campaign which we hope will grow but if the campaign ultimately helps to get only one person diagnosed at an early operable stage then we shall consider it a success. You can check out our links here Facebook https://www.facebook.com/HopeContagious/ Twitter https://twitter.com/hopecontagious (@hopecontagious) Website http://www.hopeiscontagious.co.uk/ Email info@hopeiscontagious.co.uk Thank you for your support thus far, the desire for so many people to see an improvement in pancreatic cancer outcomes is obvious from the many, many comments which have been left but I am also saddened to read the comments from those of you who have been touched by this disease. I really hope for a future when there are many more survivors of pancreatic cancer. Once again, thank you for reading and I wish you a happy new year. Very best wishes Maggie