Public ignorance and fear add thousands to annual cancer death toll.

Nearly 40% of people who fear they might have cancer delay visiting a doctor because they are worried about what they will find,according to new research. Other sufferers are failing to recognise the symptoms of the disease at an early stage leading to thousands of avoidable deaths, Cancer Research UK said.

The report,called Delay Kills, was funded by Tesco who have joined with the cancer charity to raise £10m to fund 32 early diagnosis research projects across the UK.

Professor Peter Johnson, Cancer Research UK’s chief clinician, said: "Our report highlights just how much more we have to do to raise awareness about the early signs of cancer.

Thanks to Tesco’s support our scientists can now focus on even more research to find out how we can get cancer diagnosed earlier and help many more people to survive cancer in the future.

If patients are diagnosed when the cancer is still in its early stages before it has had a chance to spread to other parts of the body it is more likely that treatment will be successful.

That is why it is so important for people to be aware of things that might be early signs of cancer."