Sharp rise in UK breast cancer survival rates
By Patricia Reaney
LONDON (Reuters) – Earlier detection and better treatments
have pushed up breast cancer survival rates in England and
Wales where two-thirds of newly diagnosed women are likely to
be alive 20 years later, scientists said on Monday.
New figures released by the charity Cancer Research UK show
Britain is gaining ground on France, Switzerland and the Nordic
countries which have among the highest survival rates for
breast cancer in Europe.
“We have been catching up,” Professor Michel Coleman, of
the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine told
reporters.
“Long-term survival is increasing and has been increasing
steadily for the past 15-20 years.”
About 72 percent of all women diagnosed with the illness in
England and Wales will survive 10 years and 66 percent will
reach the 20-year mark.
For women 50-69 years old, the age when the disease is most
commonly detected, nearly 72 percent will survive 20 years and
80 percent will live 10 years after their diagnosis, according
to the latest predictions.
The figures are a vast improvement from the 1990s when
women had a 54 percent chance of living more than 10 years and
44 percent of reaching 20 years.
In most developed countries, five-year survival rates for
the illness are higher than 70 percent.
Professor Tony Howell, a cancer specialist at the Christie
Hospital in Manchester, England, described the predicted rises
in survival from breast cancer as extraordinary.
“This is a triumph,” he said. “It means women have a higher
risk of dying of something else.”
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide.
More than a million cases occur each year and about 400,000
women die of the disease, according to the International Agency
for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France.
Coleman said early detection of the disease and
improvements in surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and new drugs
were the reasons for the improved figures which are based on
the latest available data on deaths from the illness.
New treatments such as aromatase inhibitors, which suppress
the production of oestrogen in post-menopausal women, could
improve the figures even more.
Herceptin, made by Switzerland’s Roche Holding AG, is also
expected to have an impact. The drug, designed for women with
an aggressive cancer that tests positive for human epidermal
growth factor receptor 2, known as HER-2, has been shown to
reduce recurrence of the disease by 50 percent, according to
Howell.
Trials are now being conducted to determine the drug’s
impact on survival.
“This is the first time we have been able to predict such a
huge improvement in long-term survival,” said Dr Richard
Sullivan, of Cancer Research UK.