Patients in the UK and Ireland with a range of common cancers have poorer chances of survival than in many other European countries, according to a major study published today.
Britain lags behind the average for cancer of the colon, ovary and kidney, researchers said.
The poor survival rates in the UK put it out of line with most of western Europe, where patients have the best survival chances in the continent.
The Europe-wide analysis, published in The Lancet, shows that people in eastern Europe are less likely to survive cancer than those in the west – but the gap is closing.
Researchers were able to study the fate of more than nine million adults and 60,000 children in 29 countries diagnosed between 2000 and 2007.
British campaigners said they hoped improvements in care in the last five years would make a difference.
Public Health England said Britain needed improvements in early diagnosis and treatment of the elderly.
Di Riley, head of the organisation’s National Cancer Intelligence Network, said: "The results from EUROCARE-5 and our own studies suggest that we need to raise awareness especially amongst older people and encourage them to present earlier to GPs.
"The recently introduced bowel cancer screening programme should also improve survival from colon cancer, and reduce the number of emergency presentations of elderly people with bowel cancer, particularly as we are now screening people to their mid-70s."
Sara Hiom, of Cancer Research UK, said she hoped new bowel cancer screening techniques would make a big difference.
She said: “This study confirms that we need to do much more to ensure more patients survive their cancer.
"We’re working to support GPs and the public to better understand the possible symptoms of the disease, to ensure more people are diagnosed early, when treatments are likely to be more effective."
Researcher Dr Roberta De Angelis, from the Istituto Superiore di Sanità in Rome, said: "The good news is that the number of adults surviving for at least five years after diagnosis has risen steadily over time in all European regions, reflecting major advances in cancer management such as organised cancer screening programmes and improved treatments.
"But there continues to be big disparities between countries, and international survival differences are narrowing for only a few cancers such as breast, rectum, prostate, and melanoma of the skin."
Cancer survival in Europe 1999-2007 by country and age: results of EUROCARE-5, a population-based study. Lancet 5 December 2013 [abstract]
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