About a third of cancers averaged survival rates of 60-79%. These included cancers of the breast, prostate, bladder, cervix, uterus and larynx.
For one-fifth of all cancers, the European average five-year survival was in the range 40-59% this group included colon, rectum and kidney cancers and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
About 10% of all cancers had poor prognosis, with an average of 20-39% five-year survival. These included stomach and ovarian cancer and multiple myeloma.
However, about a quarter of all adult cancers fell into the worst prognosis category including cancers of the lung, pancreas, oesophagus, brain and liver. These had survival rates of less than 20%.
Childhood cancer survival was generally good with two-thirds of all affected children (13 of the 24 malignancies analysed) achieving 75% five-year survival or better.
Survival for most cancers declined steeply with age at diagnosis. Two exceptions were breast cancer, where the best survival was for women aged 45-54 and prostate cancer where it was among men aged 55-64 years.
But, even after the investigators had adjusted for differences in background mortality by age and sex between regions and countries they found large variations between countries in overall cancer survival and survival for specific cancers, as well as between men and women.
Overall survival was generally below the European average in five eastern European countries (Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, with Poland the lowest) and in Denmark, England, Scotland, Wales, Malta and Portugal among participating western European countries. Sweden tended to have the highest survival rates among the five Nordic countries, while the areas of France and Switzerland covered by the study often had the highest survival
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Contact: Mary Rice
mary.rice@blueprintpartners.be
45-3252-4163
Federation of European Cancer Societies
25-Sep-2003