UK: Death rates from breast cancer in the UK have fallen dramatically

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LONDON, August 12, 2010 -

A team at the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, examined World Health Organisation data on cancer rates for all women from 1989 to 2006 in addition to country specific data. It has found that the fall in death rates was greater than 30% in three countries, 20-30% in 12 countries and had increased in four countries.

The study, which examined mortality rates in 30 countries over the past two decades, challenges claims that survival rates in the UK are worse than anywhere else in western Europe. Researchers, who reported a fall in death rates of about a fifth across all countries, said that the apparently poor survival rates in the UK are misleading because of the way cancer patients are registered, whereas population-based mortality rates are more reliable.

Karen McVeigh and Randeep Ramesh of The Guardian, London, citing cancer researchers, reported on Thursday, August 12 that death rates from breast cancer in the UK have fallen more dramatically than any other European country.