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Cancer

Answer

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked her to reply.Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated 24 January 2006:"As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking what the survival rates for (a) lung, (b) breast, (c) testicular, (d) prostate, (e) ovarian, (f) bowel and (g) other cancers have been in the most recent period for which figures are available. (45201)""Cancer survival rates are only produced for specific cancers and are calculated by combining several years of diagnosis. For this reason no single figure is available for the category ‘other cancers'.""Survival rates for 21 common cancers among adult patients in England diagnosed during 1998–2001 and followed up to the end of 2003 (covering about 90 per cent. of all cancer cases in these patients) were published on the National Statistics website on 9 May 2005, and are available at: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Expodata/Spreadsheets/D8982.xls""One- and five-year survival rates relating to the cancers listed in (a)—(f) are given in the attached table."

One and five year age-standardised relative survival (percentage) for adult patients diagnosed during 1998–2001 (England), major cancers by sex(24)
Percentage
	Patients diagnosed during 1998–2001, England
Cancer	One year relative survival	Five year relative survival
Lung
Men	24.5	6.3
Women	26.3	7.5
Breast
Women	93.7	79.9
Testis
Men	98.0	96.6
Prostate
Men	89.8	70.8
Ovary
Women	66.9	38.3
Colon
Men	68.3	49.4
Women	68.2	50.2
Rectum
Men	74.7	50.0
Women	76.6	53.6
Source: Office for National Statistics
(24) As cancer survival varies with age at diagnosis, the relative rates for all ages (15 to 99) have been age-standardised to control for changes in the age profile of cancer patients over time, thus making them comparable with previously published figures.
(25) Aged 15 to 99 years.
(26) Cancers registered in 1998–2001 are defined by codes in the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD10). Therefore, lung cancer is defined by codes C33-C34, breast cancer by code C50, testicular cancer by code C62, prostate cancer by code C61, ovarian cancer by codes C56-C57.7, colon cancer by code CIS and rectal cancer by codes C19-C21.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

45201; 441 c2045-6W

Session

2005-06

Subjects

Death Breast cancer Cancer Diseases Prostate cancer Lung cancer Mortality rates Ovarian cancer Testicular cancer Bowel cancer

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk