Today in the UK, 50 per cent of people diagnosed with cancer will survive their disease for at least a decade, according to new figures from Cancer Research UK.
That means about 15,000 people in the East of England each year can now expect to live at least that long.
In the early 1970s, just a quarter of people diagnosed with cancer in the UK survived 10 years, but now experts say it’s time to adopt a whole new way of looking at the disease as they aim for a 75 per cent survival rate in 20 years time.
Paula Young is Cancer Research UK’s spokeswoman for East Anglia, based at the charity’s Cambridge institute on the Biomedical Campus.
She said: “Every year, tens of thousands more people are surviving cancer a decade after diagnosis, showing that we’re gradually reversing the tide on this devastating disease. This is thanks to the work of our scientists and doctors, but none of it would be possible without the generosity of the public, whose donations we rely on to fund all our research.
“But each year more and more people are diagnosed with cancer. We believe no one should be diagnosed too late for their life to be saved and effective treatments should be available to every patient, no matter what type of cancer they have.
“Achieving our ambition to see three-quarters of all cancer patients surviving their disease in the next 20 years will be challenging. But with the continued commitment of our scientists, doctors and nurses and the generous support of the public, we hope to see our progress accelerate over the coming years to make this a reality.”
Meanwhile, the study – based on data from 7 million adults in England and Wales diagnosed between 1971 and 2011 – revealed women with breast cancer have a 78 per cent chance of surviving at least a decade in the UK, compared to only 40 per cent 40 years ago.
Likewise, 10-year survival for men with testicular cancer has jumped from 69 to 98 per cent since the 1970s and, for people diagnosed with malignant melanoma – the most serious form of skin cancer – 10-year survival has leapt from 46 to 89 per cent.
But it’s not all good news. Just one per cent of pancreatic cancer patients and five per cent of lung cancer patients diagnosed today are expected to survive 10 years, while survival from oesophageal cancer is 12 per cent and brain tumour survival is 13 per cent.
The charity has launched a new cancer strategy featuring a raft of measures aimed at accelerating progress, with the key focus on ensuring patients are diagnosed as early as possible and funding more scientists so discoveries at laboratory level find their way into clinics quicker.
Dr Harpal Kumar, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said: “It’s not very long ago that cancer used to be thought of as a death sentence. The reason this 50 per cent figure is an important tipping point is it’s saying that, actually, now half of all patients will survive at least 10 years after a diagnosis and for many it will be very much longer than that.”
Robert Fossett, of Gosling Way, Sawston, was diagnosed with prostate cancer and then breast cancer in 2004, but is now in remission.
The 69-year-old said: “At the end of the day it is down to the individual. The help is out there and it is about being aware of your condition and what can help. You have to take some responsibility for your own health.
“Cancer Research UK are doing some really good work and it has helped us move away from thinking a cancer diagnosis is the start of slipping away into death. But you need strength of body and mind, as well as medicine, to survive.”