More women are dying of ovarian
cancer in the UK than in other countries with similar economies
and standards of living, experts say.
Differences in treatment for advanced ovarian
cancer could explain why the UK lags behind, researchers
believe.
A team from Cancer Research UK's Cancer Survival Group at the
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine examined the records
of more than 20,000 women diagnosed with ovarian cancer between
2004 and 2007.
While the UK had a similar proportion of women diagnosed with
ovarian cancer as in Australia, Canada, Denmark and Norway, more
women died of their cancer in the UK than elsewhere.
In the UK 69 per cent of women survived for at least one year,
compared with 72 per cent in Denmark and between 74 per cent and 75
per cent in Australia, Canada and Norway
Women with advanced disease - where the cancer had begun to
spread to other parts of the body - had particularly low survival
rates in the UK compared to the other four countries.
This suggests that the success of treatment is lower in the UK,
and more effort should be made to ensure that UK women with ovarian
cancer have the same access to the best treatments, the researchers
told the journal Gynecologic Oncology.
But UK death rates from ovarian cancer have been falling in
recent years. Now, nearly three-quarters of women survive at least
one year after diagnosis compared to less than half in the
1970s.
Cancer Research UK predicts this downward trend will continue
and the death rate will reduce by over 40 per cent - dropping from
9.1 women per 100,000 to 5.3 by 2030.
For more information on ovarian
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Source © Trio Media 2012