UK still behind in cancer survival despite recent surge

Big improvement in past two decades fails to close gap with likes of Australia and Canada

Cancer survival rates in the UK have improved markedly over recent decades but still lag behind those of comparable countries, a major research exercise has shown.

The study looked at one-year and five-year survival of cancer patients in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway and the UK between 1995 and 2014. It found that while the chances of surviving cancer have improved in the UK, they have not caught up with other countries, which are also doing better thanks to new technologies and efforts to catch the disease at an earlier stage before it becomes hard to treat.

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