Knowing that 2,800 B.C. women will contract breast cancer and 640 will die from it this year provides an urgency to run for a cure.
Oct. 3 is the day to lace up the sneakers during Canada's largest single fund-raising event, Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run for the Cure, for research, community education and awareness programs.
In Prince George, one of nine participating B.C. communities, the one or five-kilometer runs begins at the Civic Centre at 10 a.m. with the awards celebration scheduled for 10:50 a.m.
Supporters still have time to register online at www.cbcf.org and do fundraising for this 19th annual event.
Past efforts to take control of the disease that will grip 23,200 Canadian women during 2010 have reduced breast cancer death rates by more than 30 per cent since 1986, but there is still no cure.
Breast cancer statistics for 2010 show:
**Breast cancer accounts for 28 per cent of all cancer cases among Canadian women and is the most common form of cancer diagnosed in Canadian women.
**On average, every week 445 Canadian women are diagnosed and 100 Canadian women die from breast cancer.
**More than 50 pre cent of cases are diagnosed in females 50 to 69 years old while 19 per cent of cases are found in females less than 50 years.
**The risk of developing breast cancer increases with age.
**CBCF has a goal to end breast cancer as we know it today by the year 2020 through support of prevention, early detection, treatment, research and the healthcare workforce.
