Cancer report shows increased five-year survival in children

FIVE-YEAR survival rates for patients age 0-14 increased by nearly 10 per cent in the period from 2002 to 2019, according a new report from NHS Digital.

The report found that five-year survival for 0-14 year olds increased from 76.9 in 2002 to 85.2 per cent in 2019. One-year survival increased by 3.5 per cent (93.2 per cent in 2019) and 10-year survival increased by 7.3 per cent (81.9 per cent in 2019) over the same period.

The report found that childhood cancers accounted for 0.3 per cent of all new cancer diagnoses registered in 2019, with the majority of cases being either leukaemia, malignant neoplasms of the brain or non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Cancer Survival in England for Patients Diagnosed Between 2015 and 2019 uses National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service (NCRAS) data and also provides information on survival rates for cancers in adults newly diagnosed between the 2015 and 2019.

The report found that skin cancer had the highest five-year age standardised net survival rate (94.8 per cent) over the period, and pancreatic cancer and mesothelioma had the lowest rates, at 7.8 and 6.3 per cent respectively.

Five-year age standardised net survival by stage ranged from 3.2 per cent for stage 4 lung cancer for males to 100 per cent for stage 1 melanoma for females.

The report also shows that net survival rate was lowest in the most deprived area and highest in the least deprived, with the rate consistently decreasing as deprivation increases. The largest deprivation difference in one-year age standardised net survival rates was seen in women with bladder cancer, where the variation was 13.4 per cent between those women living in the most (58.4 per cent) and least deprived areas (71.8 per cent).