LONDON (Reuters Life!) – Survival rates for four major cancers diagnosed between 1995 and 2007 are higher in Australia, Canada, and Sweden than in Britain and Denmark, according to an international study published on Wednesday.

The difference in survival rates for breast, ovarian, colorectal and lung cancer are largely due to tumors being detected later in Britain and Denmark, researchers said, which makes the cancers more difficult to treat.

"these data will be crucial in helping all the partners involved improve their cancer outcomes," said Mike Richards, the British government's national cancer director for England, who worked on the study with Michel Coleman of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and 80 others.

The study was funded by the UK government's department of health and the charity Cancer Research UK.

Richards said his department was already working on improving earlier diagnosis by giving doctors more direct access to key diagnostic tests, and will launch a campaign next month to alert people to the early signs and symptoms of bowel, lung and breast cancer.

Previous findings have shown that for patients diagnosed with cancer from 1995 to 1999, up to 11,400 more patients died each year within five years of diagnosis across England, Scotland and Wales than would have been the case if five-year cancer survival rates had matched the highest in 13 other European countries. Breast, ovarian, lung and colorectal cancers accounted for half of those avoidable deaths.

Since the late 1990s many countries have implemented new cancer plans, including Britain and Denmark, to try to raise survival rates to the levels seen in other wealthy nations.

Wednesday's study, published in The Lancet medical journal, found that relative survival improved during 1995-2007 for all four cancers in all the countries studied.

Survival was persistently higher in Australia, Canada, and Sweden, intermediate in Norway, and lower in Denmark, England, Northern Ireland, and Wales, particularly in the first year after diagnosis and for patients aged 65 years and older.

International differences narrowed at all ages for breast cancer between 1995 and 2007, from about 9 percent to 5 percent — with the range for one-year survival across the six countries at 89-98 percent for 1995 to 1999 and 93-98 percent for 2005 to 2007. For five-year breast-cancer survival, differences between countries narrowed from 14 percent to 8 percent. Survival ranges narrowed less, or not at all, for the other three cancers.

"Differences in individual, health-system, and clinical factors — such as public awareness of cancer, diagnostic delay, stage (of cancer at diagnosis), comorbidity (other serious illnesses at the time of cancer diagnosis), and access to optimum treatment — are all potential explanations for the overall differences in relative survival," the researchers wrote.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland, editing by Paul Casciato)

The chances of surviving cancer in the UK are the poorest among leading Western nations, says a damning study.

Survival rates for bowel, lung, breast or ovarian cancer are lower here than in Australia, Canada and Sweden.

The most shameful finding is that Britons aged 65 and over are the least likely to survive of any group of patients.

Lagging behind: A woman has a mammogram, but results suggest that sufferers in the UK have less chance of survival that other leading nations

Late diagnosis and differences in treatment compared with other countries are blamed by researchers, who included Government cancer ‘tsar’ Professor Sir Michael Richards.

The latest findings, from an international study of 2.4million people, which include figures up to 2007, are the ‘most reliable record card yet’ of how Britain is doing.

The research, part-funded by the Department of Health, suggests that thousands of people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are dying prematurely from common cancers each year.

In some cases survival rates in the UK were more than 10 per cent lower than those elsewhere in Europe, Australia and Canada. In the UK, over-65s were up to 20 per cent less likely to survive.

Previous research by the same team concluded that 11,400 avoidable deaths occurred here each year from cancer.

The latest study focused on four cancers – breast, bowel, lung and ovarian – in the UK (not including Scotland), Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Survival rates were checked between 1995 and 2007.

The results, published online by the Lancet medical journal, showed that the life expectancy of cancer patients in the UK was consistently shorter than in other countries. only Denmark had a similarly poor record, though generally it did better than the UK.

For the most recent period, up to 2007, the UK had the worst bowel, lung and breast cancer five-year survival rates of any of the six countries. In this period, 53.6 per cent of UK bowel cancer patients were alive five years after diagnosis compared with 65.9 per cent in Australia. For lung cancer, 8.8 per cent survived five years in the UK and 18.4 per cent in Canada.

Although breast cancer survival has improved in the UK, with 81.6 per cent of women living five years, it still compares poorly with Sweden, where 88.5 per cent survived.

Denmark’s five-year survival rate for ovarian cancer was marginally lower than the UK’s – 36.1 per cent compared with 36.4 per cent – but 41.9 per cent of those diagnosed in Canada lived five years.

The study highlights the shocking outlook for over-65s with cancer. It says the survival ‘deficit’ – the difference between UK survival rates and the best-performing countries – for bowel cancer is generally around 10 per cent, but for pensioners it hit 10-15 per cent. In lung cancer, the survival rate at all ages was lower, but especially so for those aged 65 and over.

For breast cancer, survival was lower in the UK in all age groups and for over-65s up to 20 per cent below Australia and Canada.

Sir Michael said: ‘Our absolute aim is to narrow the gap so that over time this country has outcomes that are among the best in the world.’ he added that early diagnosis was now the focus of the national cancer strategy, and a ?10.75 million initiative in the New Year would raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of cancer.