Our cancer shame: Survival rates in UK are the worst among leading nations

By Jenny Hope
Last updated at 8:10 AM on 22nd December 2010

The chances of surviving cancer in the UK are the poorest among leading Western nations, says a damning study.

Survival rates for bowel, lung, breast or ovarian cancer are lower here than in Australia, Canada and Sweden.

The most shameful finding is that Britons aged 65 and over are the least likely to survive of any group of patients.

Lagging behind: A woman has a mammogram, but results suggest that sufferers in the UK have less chance of survival that other leading nations

Late diagnosis and differences in treatment compared with other countries are blamed by researchers, who included Government cancer ‘tsar’ Professor Sir Michael Richards.

The latest findings, from an international study of 2.4million people, which include figures up to 2007, are the ‘most reliable record card yet’ of how Britain is doing.

The research, part-funded by the Department of Health, suggests that thousands of people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are dying prematurely from common cancers each year.

In some cases survival rates in the UK were more than 10 per cent lower than those elsewhere in Europe, Australia and Canada. In the UK, over-65s were up to 20 per cent less likely to survive.

Previous research by the same team concluded that 11,400 avoidable deaths occurred here each year from cancer.

The latest study focused on four cancers – breast, bowel, lung and ovarian – in the UK (not including Scotland), Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Survival rates were checked between 1995 and 2007.

The results, published online by The Lancet medical journal, showed that the life expectancy of cancer patients in the UK was consistently shorter than in other countries. Only Denmark had a similarly poor record, though generally it did better than the UK.

For the most recent period, up to 2007, the UK had the worst bowel, lung and breast cancer five-year survival rates of any of the six countries. In this period, 53.6 per cent of UK bowel cancer patients were alive five years after diagnosis compared with 65.9 per cent in Australia. For lung cancer, 8.8 per cent survived five years in the UK and 18.4 per cent in Canada.

Although breast cancer survival has improved in the UK, with 81.6 per cent of women living five years, it still compares poorly with Sweden, where 88.5 per cent survived.

Denmark’s five-year survival rate for ovarian cancer was marginally lower than the UK’s – 36.1 per cent compared with 36.4 per cent – but 41.9 per cent of those diagnosed in Canada lived five years.

The study highlights the shocking outlook for over-65s with cancer. It says the survival ‘deficit’ – the difference between UK survival rates and the best-performing countries – for bowel cancer is generally around 10 per cent, but for pensioners it hit 10-15 per cent. In lung cancer, the survival rate at all ages was lower, but especially so for those aged 65 and over.

For breast cancer, survival was lower in the UK in all age groups and for over-65s up to 20 per cent below Australia and Canada.

Sir Michael said: ‘Our absolute aim is to narrow the gap so that over time this country has outcomes that are among the best in the world.’ He added that early diagnosis was now the focus of the national cancer strategy, and a £10.75 million initiative in the New Year would raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of cancer.