Australia has best survival rates for cancer
An international cancer review shows Australia has one of the best disease survival rates in the world.
The study, published in the journal, The Lancet compares survival rates in 31 countries for the major cancer types, with Australia consistently falling at the top of the league table next to north America and Japan.
In Australia, Tasmania had the poorest survival rates for most cancers except breast and prostate, and the Northern Territory was the worst performer.
But the UK reviewers said state variations were “generally very small and overall survival was very high, suggesting high standards of health care in most areas.”
Professor Graham Giles from the Cancer Council Australia, said good access to drug treatments and well established screening programs for cancer of the breast and cervix had put Australia in the lead.
But slow uptake of the national bowel screening program currently being rolled out was not helping the statistics.
“Improvements could also be made to breast screening rates, with only about 50% of women over 50 regularly getting a mammogram”, he said.
Lung cancer “needs work”, mostly in increased effort to reduce smoking rates.
“Men are giving up in droves but the smoking epidemic in women has yet to abate and that is a problem,” Professor Giles said.
Prostate and pancreatic cancer also had room for improvement, the specialist said, but the focus needed to be on research.
