The odds of surviving lung cancer are significantly higher in Norway and Sweden than they are in England, a new study has found. The researchers based their findings on five-year survival rates for lung cancer patients in Norway, Sweden, and England, all of whom were diagnosed between 1996 and 2004.
During this period, 250,828 patients were diagnosed in England, 18,386 in Norway, and 24,886 in Sweden. Survival rates were lowest in England and highest in Sweden, irrespective of age, sex, and length of monitoring period, all of which are known to affect outcome.
Almost twice as many Swedish lung cancer patients survived five years, as did their English counterparts.
Set against the expected survival for a given age, 11.3 per cent of Swedish men diagnosed with lung cancer survived five years. This compares with 9.3 per cent of Norwegian men and 6.5 per cent of English men with the disease.
Comparable figures for women still showed England lagging behind Norway and Sweden. In Sweden, just under 16 per cent of women diagnosed with lung cancer survived five years compared with 13.5 per cent in Norway, but just 8.4 per cent of those diagnosed in England. The difference in death rates seemed to be concentrated largely in the first year after diagnosis, the study showed.
The chances of a lung cancer patient in England dying in the first three months after diagnosis between 2001 and 2004 were between 23 per cent and 46 per cent higher than they were for a patient in Norway, depending on age and sex. And they were between 56 per cent and 91 per cent higher than for a patient in Sweden.
The authors also cited data that showed that patients in England were less likely to be actively treated with surgery and drugs than their Scandinavian counterparts. This may be because symptom awareness is poor in England, and patients delay seeking medical help, so that by the time they do, their disease is already advanced and beyond curative treatment, they suggested.
The researchers added that the number of diagnoses and deaths from lung cancer in England has plummeted since the 1970s, and that the prevalence of smoking – a key risk factor for lung cancer – is higher in the UK than it is in either Norway or Sweden.
Thorax
2010; 65: 436-41
About admin
Loading ...
