Jump to full article: The Guardian (uk), 2002-06-03
Author: James Meikle, health correspondent
Intro: Britain's biggest cancer charity advised caution yesterday over suggestions that long-term survival rates for lung cancer patients were showing sharp improvements.
Doctors in Finland have reported that the proportion of sufferers who live for more than five years after diagnosis has trebled in two decades, possibly due to earlier diagnosis, and better surgical techniques and post-operative treatment.
But figures in Britain show little movement in the 5% to 6% of patients clearing the five-year hurdle between the early 1970s and early 1990s, said Cancer Research UK.
A report by the Finnish team, published in the European Respiratory Journal, said a comparison of its recent study of 600 lung cancer patients in the northern province of Oulu with a study of nearly 450 sufferers in the same area 20 years before indicated that 12% of sufferers were now surviving five years compared with 4% earlier. . .
Lung cancer deaths among men in Britain have fallen sharply since the mid 1980s, reflecting big changes in their smoking habits since the 1950s. There were still 21,130 deaths in 1999, representing more than a quarter of all deaths from cancer among men. But this was a 39% drop on 1984. The incidence in the population fell by 34% in the same period.
However, deaths from lung cancer among women have gone up 4% over the same 15 years, and the incidence by 17%.
Jump to full article » |