European cancer survival improves, UK, Denmark lag

LONDON, Aug 21 (Reuters) Cancer survival is improving in Europe but Britain and Denmark are lagging, with lower rates than countries that spend the same amount on health care, according to two new studies published today.

The latest Eurocare studies -- which include data from 83 cancer registries in 23 countries -- also suggest that wide differences in survival rates among countries are narrowing.

''Increases in survival and decreases in geographic differences over time, which are mainly due to improvements in health-care services in countries with poor survival, might indicate better cancer care,'' Italian researcher Franco Berrino and colleagues wrote in The Lancet Oncology.

Survival for the four most common cancers -- colorectal, lung, breast and prostate -- and ovarian cancer was best in central Europe and most Nordic states. South Europe was in the middle, followed by Britain and Ireland and then eastern Europe.

The researchers, using data on 2.7 million cancer patients, said if all countries had the mean survival rate of 57 per cent of Norway, Sweden and Finland, there would be about 150,000 --or 12 per cent -- fewer deaths in the five years after diagnosis.

They also mostly found, as expected, the more a country spent on health care, the better its survival rates, except for in Britain and Denmark.

In Britain, the five-year survival rate was about 42 per cent for men and 52 per cent for women, versus the European average of about 45 and 55, respectively.

It scored just a few percentage points higher than eastern European states Slovenia, Poland and the Czech Republic, despite spending far more on health care -- a factor researchers attributed to late diagnoses and poor care.

''If survival in one country is substantially lower than that in other countries, especially those of a similar wealth, the health system is probably not functioning as it should,'' the researchers wrote.

Arduino Verdecchia, from Rome's Istituo Superiore di Santia, found similar results in a related study and said Europeans diagnosed with cancer had a bleaker outlook than US sufferers.

The five-year survival rate in the United States was 66 per cent in men and 63 in women, versus 47 and 56, respectively, in Europe, he and colleagues wrote. They suggested better skills and training of US health workers and investment in facilities and other treatment services there might explain the difference.

REUTERS SV RAI0855