Cancer death rates in Europe 'to fall'

Lung cancer deaths in women are growing across Europe but rates of the disease proving deadly in Britain are levelling off, the researchers said.

Overall, almost 1.3 million people will die from cancer in 2011.

Mike Hobday, head of policy at Macmillan Cancer Support, welcomed the fall in death rates but warned the number of people living with cancer in the UK is increasing by 3 per cent every year.

“We know that there are currently two million people in the UK living with a cancer diagnosis, if the current rate continues, the number will have doubled to four million people by 2030,” he added.

“Cancer is changing. For many cancer is now a long-term condition and it is important to realise that it is no longer just about people dying quickly of cancer or being cured.”

Figures from the Mario Negri Institute, University of Milan and the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, show an overall fall in cancer death rates of 7 per cent in men and 6 per cent in women when compared with 2007.

“However, the number of women dying from lung cancer is increasing steadily everywhere apart from in the UK, which has had the highest rates in women for a decade and is now seeing a levelling off,” the Annals of Oncology cancer journal reports.

The overall downward trend in cancer death rates is driven mainly by falls in breast cancer mortality in women, and lung and colorectal cancer in men.

“Lung, colorectal and breast cancers are the top causes of cancer deaths, and these are showing major changes,” the authors wrote.

Declines in mortality from other major cancers such as stomach, uterus, prostate and leukaemia are likely to be seen in 2011, say the researchers.

Increases in deaths from pancreatic cancer in women, which had been observed in 2004, also appear to have levelled off.