Patients with lung cancer in the UK have some of the poorest survival rates in the developed world, researchers revealed today.
A six-country study found that Swedish patients had the best survival rates.
Delays in diagnosis but also problems with treatment may contribute to the different experiences of patients, according to the study reported in the journal Thorax.
Researchers studied some 57,000 patients over a four year period in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Australia, Canada and the UK.
Just 30% of patients survived for a year after diagnosis compared with 46% in Sweden.
The next worst country was Denmark with a 34% survival rate and Norway with a 39% survival rate. Australia and Canada had survival rates of 42%.
The researchers studied in detail the fate of patients according to the stage of diagnosis.
They suggest one of the UK’s problems may be difficulties in identifying how advanced a cancer is, leading to "inappropriate treatment."
Researcher Dr Sarah Walters, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: "We’ve shown that wide international inequalities in lung cancer survival occur, even between patients who were diagnosed at the same stage of disease."
Sara Hiom, of Cancer Research UK, said: "This research should remind us that while great progress is being made in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer in the UK, we mustn’t be complacent. Around 35,000 people still die from lung cancer each year in the UK and that’s far too many.
"We would like to see on-going improvements in data collection and the use of uniform systems for data on stage, in order to improve the accuracy of global comparisons.”
Walters, S et al. Lung cancer survival and stage at diagnosis in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom: a population-based study, 2004-2007. Thorax 11 February 2013. [abstract]
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