Brain tumour research is significantly under-funded, a cancer charity has said

Brain tumour research is significantly under-funded, a cancer charity has said.

Brain Tumour Research described brain tumours as the "forgotten cancer" - despite an estimated 16,000 people in the UK being diagnosed with some form of the disease each year.

More men under the age of 45 and women under the age of 35 die from a brain tumour than any other cancer, according to the charity.

But, it argues, funding for research into the disease significantly lags behind that for other cancers.

In its new report, Brain Tumours: the Forgotten Cancer, the charity said: "The Government's spend on brain tumour research is extremely low and in recent weeks major questions have arisen over the low levels of funding that the Government gives to brain tumour research."

In 2007-08, Government funding for brain tumour research channelled through the Medical Research Council (MRC) amounted to £970,000, according to figures it announced in January. Yet the actual figure may be less than half of this, the report suggested.

Its authors wrote: "Leading brain tumour researchers were surprised with these figures as they felt that the MRC expenditure was even less than the £970,000 figure quoted.

"On further investigation...the House of Lords Library staff quoted officials from the MRC with very different figures... This information suggests that MRC expenditure for brain tumours in 2007-8 was about £412,000."

In the same period, research related to leukaemia received £14 million from the MRC, according to the Government figures cited in the report - though brain tumours have overtaken leukaemia as the biggest cancer killer of children in the UK, the charity said.

It called on the Government to increase the proportion it spends on research related to brain tumours, at least to the levels of expenditure for other cancers.