03.10.12
Quality of care behind low cancer survival rate
Differences in treatment for advanced ovarian cancer could explain why the UK’s survival rate is lower than other comparable countries, new research suggests.
Research published in the journal Gynecologic Oncology showed that the UK had a very low survival rate for patients with more advanced stages of the disease.
As part of the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership (ICBP), the study examined 20,073 records of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer between 2004 and 2007.
Overall, there were similar proportions of women diagnosed in the UK and similar countries that took part, such as Australia and Denmark. This indicates that differences in access to treatment and quality of care could play the largest role in survival rates.
Researchers found in the UK that 69% of women survived for at least a year, compared to 72% in Denmark. Survival in the UK was lowest in the most advanced stages of the disease and in cases where the stage of the disease went unrecorded.
Dr Bernard Rachet, lead author from the Cancer Survival Group at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “The results show that the proportion of women with advanced disease is similar to that in other countries, but that survival for women with advanced disease is much lower.
“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.”
Dr John Butler, study author and Cancer Research UK clinical advisor for the ICBP project from the Royal Marsden Hospital, said the UK must get better at recording the stage of disease at diagnosis and improve understanding around the survival rates to improve treatment for later stage disease.
Sara Hiom, director of information at Cancer Research UK, said: “This disturbing research advances our knowledge about what needs to be done to tackle lower ovarian cancer survival in the UK.”
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