Long term cancer survival rates double in England and Wales in past 40 years

Cancer experts have welcomed news that long term survival rates from some cancers have doubled over the past 40 years.

People given a diagnosis of breast, bowel, or ovarian cancer or non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma are now twice as likely to survive for at least 10 years as people with these diagnoses in the early 1970s.

Several factors, including faster diagnosis, better surgery, more effective radiotherapy, personalised treatment, and new drugs, have helped lead to the improvements in survival.

The figures, released this week by the charity Cancer Research UK, show that the proportion of women considered likely to survive breast cancer for at least 10 years rose from 38.9% in 1971-2 to 77% in 2007, while the proportion of people likely to survive bowel cancer rose from 23% to 50%.

The charity commissioned analyses of survival trends in England and Wales over the past 40 years for the most common cancers and an overall index of survival for all cancers combined.

The estimates are of relative survival and can be interpreted as survival from the cancer after adjustment for all other causes of death.

Other findings were that around twice as many patients with ovarian cancer and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma are now likely to survive for at least 10 years, with survival rising from 18% to 35% and from 22% to 51%, respectively, over the period studied.

Patients with leukaemia were shown to be four times as likely to survive for 10 years as those with this diagnosis in the early 1970s: a rise from 8.1% to 33.2%.

Only small improvements, however, were noted for some cancers, such as lung and pancreatic cancer, for which 10 year survival rates rose from 3.2% to 5.3% and 1.9% to 2.8% respectively.

Peter Johnson, Cancer Research UK’s chief clinician, said, “There are many reasons for our continuing success in the fight against cancer, including faster diagnosis, better surgery, more effective radiotherapy, and many new drugs, all developed using the knowledge that our laboratory research has given us.

“We expect this trend to continue, hastened by Cancer Research UK’s investment in research in all these areas.”

Michel Coleman, professor of epidemiology and vital statistics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and also head of Cancer Research UK’s cancer survival group, who calculated the figures, said, “These big increases in long term survival since the 1970s reflect real progress in cancer diagnosis and treatment.”

Harpal Kumar, the charity’s chief executive, said, “It is thanks to our supporters and the dedicated work of our doctors and scientists that we are seeing such encouraging improvements in long term survival of many cancers. But we have to do better.”

The Department of Health’s national cancer director for England, Mike Richards, said that he was “delighted” to see the improvements and added: “Improving health outcomes is a key priority for the coalition government and will be a major focus of the forthcoming review of the cancer reform strategy.”

The department announced on 6 July that Professor Richards would lead a review of the cancer reform strategy to make major improvements to cancer outcomes and to align the strategy with the key objectives of the coalition government’s white paper, to be published this week.