The Eurocare studies of 23 countries looked at the outcome of 2.7m new cases between 1995 and 1999. Government cancer “tsar” Mike Richards said poor results in the UK had been due to delays spotting the disease.

The studies, published in the Lancet Oncology journal, are the largest international projects to compare the survival of patients from 11 different cancers. They reveal wide differences in death rates from both rare and common types of cancer.

“Our concerns illustrate the considerable challenges that now face the UK government if it is to make the NHS work efficiently and effectively” Editorial, Lancet Oncology

The best performers are Nordic countries such as Sweden and Norway and central European countries.

Ranked just beneath them are south European countries, and lower still is the UK, followed by Eastern European countries.

While death rates have fallen in the UK, they have also fallen in the rest of Europe.

Some eastern European countries almost matched the UK’s performance despite spending less than a third of the UK’s health budget per head of population.

Overall, for men Sweden had the best survival rates with 60% of cancer patients alive five years after diagnosis, compared to between 40% and 50% among the UK countries.

For women, Sweden and Iceland were top on 62% with Wales, England and Northern Ireland just below the European average of 56%, while Scotland was among the worse on 48%

Delayed diagnosis

An editorial in the Lancet Oncology questioned whether the NHS Cancer Plan, launched to tackle poor survival rates in the UK, was working.

“Eurocare is an important indicator of oncology provision in Europe, giving insight into healthcare effectiveness and the improvements needed. Our concerns illustrate the considerable challenges that now face the UK government if it is to make the NHS work efficiently and effectively.”

Professor Richards conceded that while some of the data from European countries could be flawed, this was unlikely to account for all of the differences between countries.

“The findings show that many more lives could be saved if the outcomes in all countries were brought up to the standards of the best countries.”

He added: “The poor results from the UK were attributable mainly to patients having more advanced disease at diagnosis than patients in other European countries.”

‘Must ensure access’

The NHS Cancer Plan was launched in 2000, and promised an increase in specialist staff and equipment to tackle the delays in diagnosing and treating cancer.

Strict targets on the waiting times for scans and appointments were set.

Professor Richard Sullivan, Cancer Research UK’s director of clinical programmes, said “Cancer is still not being diagnosed early enough in all cases. And we need to ensure that patients have access to the best surgery, radiotherapy and other treatments. This study shows that cancer is certainly not a ‘ticked box’. We need a sustained effort to beat the disease.”

From:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6955545.stm

Health Direct readers will not be surprised by the latest shocking news on cancer survival rates in the UK. On Aug 09, 06 we posted: Postcode lottery for cancer, hearts and mental health King’s Fund reports

Wide variations in NHS spending may be denying patients fair access to drugs and treatment, a study says. The King’s Fund think tank found that some English trusts spent four times as much on certain diseases than others. The research, compiled from government data from 2003-4 to 2004-5, also showed mental health got the most cash, followed by heart disease and cancer.

Researchers also analysed overall spending on particular disease groups. The greatest proportion – over £7bn – was spent on mental health, with heart disease absorbing nearly £6bn and cancer just over £3.5bn.

As long as the Labour govt continues to use the National Institute fro Curbing Expenditure to block the use of new cancer drugs like Herceptin then UK patients will contiue to die unnecessarily.

On 4 Apr o6 Health Direct posted: Cancer: There are life-saving drugs. So why can’t we have them?

Thousands of cancer sufferers are being denied life-saving drugs because of delays and bureaucracy in making them available on the NHS. The hold-ups are a matter of life and death for desperate people who have been diagnosed with cancer of the breast, colon or lung, or with a brain tumour.

Doctors are furious that drugs such as Avastin, which is used to treat colon cancer, and Cetuximab, a treatment for head and neck cancers, are being blocked by the National Institute for Curbing Expenditure (NICE), a labour government created quango set up to decide which drugs should be routinely prescribed on the NHS.

But backlogs mean that Nice is taking up to two years to make its decisions. That means drugs such as Avastin, which have been officially licensed and approved for use, are currently denied to NHS patients although well-off people can obtain them privately. In some cases, patients are being told they face a three year wait if they want to obtain these life-saving treatments free.

Cancer charities, MPs and leading specialists are warning that this is creating a two-tier system where only those with money, and the well informed, can afford the drugs, which cost many thousands of pounds.

They also condemn the postcode lottery over prescribing of cancer drugs, which means that some people are turned down for treatment but others are successful in proving that their case is “exceptional”, depending on what part of the country they live in.