Cancer survival rates set to increase sharply
Published: May 16, 2007
More than two thirds of newly-diagnosed cancer patients will live for at least five years by 2020, according to new goals set by leading cancer charity Cancer Research UK.
Ten-year survival for all types of cancer combined has already reached levels of 46.2% of patients, new statistics from the charity reveal.
The charity has launched 10 ambitious new goals for future cancer care to be achieved by 2020.
Latest figures calculated by Professor Michel Coleman and his team at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine show that while survival varies widely between different types of cancer, on average a patient with cancer now has a 46.2% chance of being alive 10 years after diagnosis. This compares with 23.6% 30 years ago.
The sharpest rise in overall survival between 1971 and 2001 has happened over the last 10 years, when 10-year survival for all cancers combined rose by nearly 11%. Overall five-year survival rose from 39.7% to 49.6% during the same period.
Professor Coleman said: “We don’t generally use an overall survival figure for cancer, partly because it is not a helpful number to individual cancer patients anxious to know their own chances. But since the new goals relate to cancer as a whole, we feel it is important to define a simple baseline for watching progress.
“Behind the overall figures lie both disappointments and success stories. Pancreatic cancer and lung cancer both remain low on the scale and have seen little improvement.”
In contract, survival rates for breast cancer have improved significantly and almost two thirds of all women newly diagnosed with breast cancer are now likely to survive for at least 20 years.
Cancer Research UK’s new goals are wide-ranging and include reducing cancer incidence, ensuring patients get access to information they need and reducing current inequalities in incidence and survival between the most and least affluent.
The goals are aimed to inspire the whole cancer community to work in partnership to drive down smoking rates, raise awareness of how people can reduce their risk of developing cancer and improve early detection of the disease.
Harpal Kumar, Cancer Research UK’s chief executive, said: “Our goals are as broad as they are ambitious. They recognise the importance of furthering our fundamental biological understanding of cancer while at the same time taking that knowledge out of the lab and turning it into new treatments.”
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