Growing numbers of patients are genuinely “cured” of cancer by modern treatments, a major European study reported today.
The new study for the first time has sought to work out numbers of cures by counting those patients whose life expectancy has proved to be the same as that of everyone else.
Researchers say the findings show how cancer treatment is improving – but also how patients’ prospects vary massively between countries.
In Iceland, as many as 47 per cent of men have lived a full lifespan following treatment while in France and Finland some 59 per cent of women seem to have been cured of the disease, according to the special issue of the European Journal of Cancer.
In England slighly fewer than 50 per cent of women and a little more than 35 per cent of men were cured. Rates in Scotland were lower, according to the Eurocare study.
The findings show even a significant proportion of patients with the worst kinds of cancer are effectively cured and that rates are increasing. Some eight per cent of lung cancer patients had survived when the figures were collected at the end of the last decade, an increase from six per cent just ten years earlier.
And survival rates from stomach cancer increased from 15 per cent to 18 per cent.
Dr Riccardo Capocaccia, of the National Centre for Epidemiology, Surveillance and Health Promotion in Rome, Italy, and guest editor of the journal, said: “For all cancers combined, the very wide range in the proportion of patients cured in the contributing countries, ranging from 21 per cent to 47 per cent in men and 38 per cent to 59 per cent in women, also depends on the varying frequency across Europe of the different cancers.
“This proportion is, therefore, also an indicator of Europe-wide variations in cancer control, because it reflects progress in diagnosis and treatment, as well as success in the prevention of the most fatal cancers.”
Professor Mike Richards, the British national director for cancer services, said: “This shows that a lot of people with cancer are cured and that is very important and that is good news. Perhaps the even better news is that we can undoubtedly do better.”
European Journal of Cancer, Vol 45, issue 6 (April 2009), pages 901-1094. “Survival of cancer patients in Europe, 1995-2002: The EUROCARE 4 Study.”
* Hundreds of people could be screened for bowel cancer from the age of 25 using new techniques, British experts said today.
Screening centres could concentrate on relatives of existing patients, using a genetic marker to identify those at risk, according to the study by the Institute of Cancer Research, London.
The study of nearly 3,000 patients with bowel cancer found that a test known as the MSI test identified those who had a strong risk of having relatives with the disease.
The immediate family of those who were MSI-positive were found to have 20 times increased risk of developing the same disease before the age of 70. About 11.7 per cent of patients had this trait, according to the report in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Researcher Professor Richard Houlton said the immediate families of these patients should be offered screening from the age of 25 to look for pre-cancerous polyps.
Relatives of patients who were MSI-negative probably did not need to begin screening until the age of 45, he said.
Professor Houlton said: “Screening programmes can be better tailored to individuals if information on the number of additional first degree relatives with bowel cancer is used in conjunction with information on MSI status.”
Dr Lesley Walker, of Cancer Research UK, said: : “This important research provides an accurate way to plan screening for the early detection of bowel cancer in high-risk families.”
Implications of familial colorectal cancer risk profiles and MSI status. Steven J Lubbe et al. Journal of Clinical Oncology 2009.
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