Patients in America, Japan & France have better cancer-survival than others

The Americans, the Japanese and the French have the highest cancer survival rates among patients in 31 countries, says a global study published today in the Lancet Oncology. Algerians were reported to have the lowest survival rates.

The research involved 2 million patients with the four most common forms of the disease and was carried out by more than 100 scientists across the world. The patients had been diagnosed with one of four cancers: breast, colon, rectum, or prostate cancers during the years 1990-1994. They were followed up to 1999, with the researchers comparing five-year survival rates.

Highest survival rate among breast and prostate cancer patients was found in the U.S., colon and rectal cancers in men in Japan, and the same cancers among women in France.

Canada and Australia also had a high rate of cancer-survival, for most forms of the disease.

The variation in different nations is because of difference in their gross domestic product and spending on latest technologies such as computed tomography scanners, the study found. Under-investment in health resources is likely to play a role in countries with poor results, the researchers said.

“Most of the wide global range in survival is probably attributable to differences in access to diagnostic and treatment services,” said Michel Coleman, MD, a professor of epidemiology and vital statistics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the study's lead author.

The survival rate from cancer was low in the UK, but better survival was noted in its western European neighbors.

Algeria had a considerably low survival for all cancers and patients in Poland and Slovakia also faired poorly.

However, the report cannot be considered very accurate now since the data is from the 1990s and cancer survival has grown since then.

The result indicated that an American man is four times more likely to survive prostate cancer than an Algerian, while a Japanese man is six times more likely to survive colon cancer.

The study reinforces the long-known fact that cancer-survival rates vary in different regions and such disparity exists even within a country. Still, there were surprises. "I think the surprises were that the range in global survival is really quite wide," Coleman said.

"Survival in the USA is high on a global scale but varies quite widely among individual states as well as between blacks and whites within the USA," he said.