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Cancer Survival

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Cancer survival: Research hails major improvement

Overall median cancer survival periods in England and Wales have increased from one year to nearly six years in the last four decades, figures show. The biggest improvement is for colon cancer, with a 17-fold improvement.

Macmillan Cancer Support carried out an analysis of survival times and estimates for 20 cancers going back four decades, drawing on research by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The charity says it would expect the figures to be similar for the whole of the UK.

Survival is usually expressed as the number of people reaching a particular milestone, such as one, five or 10 years after diagnosis. The charity has calculated median survival times - the time it takes until half of those diagnosed have died.

The figures show an improvement in overall median cancer survival, from one year for patients diagnosed in 1971-72 to nearly six years for those diagnosed four decades later.

Six of the cancers now have median survival times of more than 10 years. There is a 10-fold increase for non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

However the data also shows that for nine cancers, median survival time is still three years or under.

It indicates little improvement in 40 years for lung, brain and pancreatic cancer.