Abstract
EUROCARE-4 analysed about three million adult cancer cases from 82 cancer registries
in 23 European countries, diagnosed in 1995–1999 and followed to December 2003. For
each cancer site, the mean European area-weighted observed and relative survival at
1-, 3-, and 5-years by age and sex are presented. Country-specific 1- and 5-year relative
survival is also shown, together with 5-year relative survival conditional to surviving
1-year. Within-country variation in survival is analysed for selected cancers.
Survival for most solid cancers, whose prognosis depends largely on stage at diagnosis
(breast, colorectum, stomach, skin melanoma), was highest in Finland, Sweden, Norway
and Iceland, lower in the UK and Denmark, and lowest in the Czech Republic, Poland
and Slovenia. France, Switzerland and Italy generally had high survival, slightly
below that in the northern countries. There were between-region differences in the
survival for haematologic malignancies, possibly due to differences in the availability
of effective treatments.
Survival of elderly patients was low probably due to advanced stage at diagnosis,
comorbidities, difficult access or lack of availability of appropriate care.
For all cancers, 5-year survival conditional to surviving 1-year was higher and varied
less with region, than the overall relative survival.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: January 27, 2009
Accepted:
November 12,
2008
Received in revised form:
November 11,
2008
Received:
June 10,
2008
Identification
Copyright
© 2008 Elsevier Ltd. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.