Cancer survival rates in England are improving, but they still lag behind those in the best-performing countries in the world. The current government has identified cancer survival rates as an area for improvement and the cancer strategy commits to saving an additional 5,000 lives by 2015, but how can these improvements be achieved?
How to improve cancer outcomes, published in partnership with Cancer Research UK, considers the existing differences in cancer survival rates between countries and discusses the reasons for these variations including: stage at diagnosis and diagnostic delay; treatment factors; patient factors; and tumour biology and physiological/biological factors.
The authors suggest that the most plausible drivers for improved survival rates are:
1. diagnosis at an early stage, including through effective screening programmes
2. access to optimal treatment
3. improvements in the management of older people with cancer.
This has been rephrased by Cancer UK as:
It highlights the fact that compared with other countries:
- English patients are often diagnosed at a later stage
- In England there are delays in accessing treatment
- In this country evidence suggests that some older patients are being under-treated
The message for us in the US is simple. With the new systems going into place emulating the NHS we too will see a rise in mortality. The Report is worth the read but it needs interpreting. Euphemisms abound.
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