British women more likely to die of cancer
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Your support makes all the difference.British women are at a much higher risk of dying from cancer than those in many other European countries including Estonia, Slovenia, and Russia, according to research published by the European Institute of Oncology.
The cancer mortality rate for women in England and Wales is almost double that of Greece which is at the healthier end of a league table of 37 European countries. Female deaths from lung and bladder cancer in Scotland are the highest in Europe.
The study also revealsmortality from lung cancer among women in Scotland is seven times that of Spain. England and Wales rank fifth.
The figures will raise further alarm over failure of health services to deal effectively with breast cancer. Scotland, and England and Wales, have the seventh and eighth highest death rates for breast cancer, according to the study.
But the study shows death rates from cancer for men are below the European average. The gender gap has been created largely by poor outcomes for women in three main areas of the disease - breast, lung and bladder cancer.
Meanwhile, there have been huge improvements in treatment of male cancers, with 96 per cent of men with testicular cancer in the UK now surviving more than five years.
The research suggests that while death rates from cancer have been going down across Europe - 90,000 fewer deaths a year than in the late 1980s - there are big differences between countries.
Out of 37 countries surveyed, Scotland has the third highest overall cancer death rates for women, just behind Denmark and Hungary. Ireland is fifth while England and Wales are seventh highest.
Scotland also tops the league for bladder cancer, with England and Wales in third place. The Scottish death rate is around four times higher than Finland, at the bottom of the league.
A report in the International Journal of Cancer says that to reduce death rates, concerted action is needed. "The maintenance, and potential improvement, of favourable trends in cancer mortality in the near future require an integrated strategy focusing on control of tobacco, alcohol abuse and other major risk factors, including avoidance of obesity, taking up of physical activity, favourable changes in diet, increasing daily intake and variety of vegetables and fruit, and avoiding excessive sun and other sources of UV exposure," it says.
The report says that in the European Union, total cancer mortality declined by 7 per cent for both sexes over the last five-year period they looked at.
It says that the decline is largely due to the drop in tobacco-related cancer mortality in men.
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