On March 16th GICI launched a new Awareness Campaign brand profiling the high rates of GI cancers in New Zealand. 5,000 people a year are diagnosed with over half dying within 5 years. We fund vital clinical research to improve this rate and we are making a difference with the mortality rate dropping 3% between 2011 and 2012. Help us, share this video, ‪#‎GutsyforGICI‬ To donate $3 TEXT GICI to 2449 or www.gicinz.org.nz/donate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOgiJFQuUYw

The INTEGRATE Trial is helping answer an important health question. It has provided evidence that a new treatment, regorafenib, acts against advanced oesophago-gastric cancer and is safe. The investigators are now confident that they can look into a larger trial investigating survival. The trial recruited 152 patients from Australia, New Zealand, Korea and Canada. Patients were randomly allocated to regorafenib or a placebo tablet. Two thirds of the participants were put on the trial drug. All had advanced disease that had come back after chemotherapy. Of the patients taking regorafenib, 46% had no growth in their tumour at 8 weeks, compared with 18% taking placebo. The average overall short term survival was better in the regorafenib.

The latest Ministry of Health cancer statistics are now available. The death rate for gastro-intestinal cancers has dropped from 59% to 56%. Pancreatic cancer death rate has dropped the most from 94% to 84% in the last year. Men have considerably higher rates of GI cancers. GI cancers account for 22.5% of all cancers and 30.8% of all deaths from cancer. Help us raise funds to fight this disease. Text GICI to 2449 to donate $3 or www.gicinz.org.nz/donate.