Star Metro - New cancer plan urged as survival improvements in England slow

The study, conducted by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, measured the survival index for 10.8 million adults diagnosed with cancer between 1971 and 2018, accounting for variables like age, sex, and cancer type.

It found substantial improvements over the 48-year period, with the five-year survival index increasing from 28.8 percent in 1971–72 to 56.6 percent in 2018.

However, the pace of progress has slowed in recent years.

The 10-year survival index improved by four percent between 2000–01 and 2005–06 and only 1.4 percent between 2010–11 and 2015–16.

The slowdown since 2010 "is likely to be at least partly explained by longer waits for diagnosis and treatment," said the report.

The deceleration has been observed across many individual cancers, "implying a system-wide challenge," said the study, funded by the Cancer Research UK charity.

Most notably, the 10-year survival index for breast, cervix, rectum, prostate, testis, and uterus cancers plateaued in the last 10–15 years, while the index for larynx cancers decreased.

Pancreatic cancer survival, at 4.3 percent in 2018, has shown minimal change since 1971–72.

The study calls for a "new, long-term National Cancer Plan" to "bring cancer survival trends back towards the best in the world".

National cancer strategies have been part of health policy in England and Wales since 2000.

The fourth national cancer strategy was published in 2015 but is now considered outdated as the current trajectory has failed to match its ambitious targets.

Plans for a fifth plan were withdrawn in January 2023, "leaving England as one of the few high-income countries in which a national cancer plan was not a central pillar of national health policy," said the report.

O.Ouellet--SMC