National cancer policies in England have failed to lead to improved survival from the disease, according to an analysis published today.
Experts from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, assessed the effectiveness of the NHS Cancer Plan in 2000 and the national cancer policies it produced.
Aimilia Exarchakou and colleagues looked at information on more than 3.5 million cancer patients diagnosed between 1996 and 2013.
This showed that one-year survival improved steadily from 1996 for over half of the 41 cancers studied. However, the deprivation gap observed for all 41 cancers among patients diagnosed in 1996 persisted until 2013.
But they add in BMJ today (15 March) that: "The gap slightly decreased for six cancers among men for which one-year survival was more than 65% in 1996, and for cervical and uterine cancers, for which survival was more than 75% in 1996."
Furthermore, "The deprivation gap widened notably for brain tumours in men and for lung cancer in women."
Overall, they found little evidence of a direct impact of national cancer strategies on one year survival, and no evidence for a reduction in socioeconomic inequalities in cancer survival.
"These findings emphasise that socioeconomic inequalities in survival remain a major public health problem for a health care system founded on equity," they conclude.
In an editorial, Professor Diana Sarfati and Dr Christopher Jackson of the University of Otago, New Zealand, say: "The goals of the NHS Cancer Plan were to save lives and to ensure that the gains were evenly shared. These goals remain critical. The methods to achieve them need more work."
Exarchakou, A. et al. Impact of national cancer policies on cancer survival trends and socioeconomic inequalities in England, 1996-2013: population based study. BMJ 15 March 2018 doi: 10.1136/bmj.k764
Leave a Reply