Survival rates for several cancers vary significantly from one country to another, the USA offer the best rates especially in the white population, according to a study published Thursday in the British journal the Lancet Me oncology.The study, the first of its kind, was conducted by a team led by Michel Coleman (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine), about 1.9 million people in 31 countries over two dozen countries in Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, Brazil, Algeria and Cuba. The researchers compared the survival rates five years for cancers of the breast, colon, rectum, and prostate, diagnosed over the period 1990-1994.
In general, for all these cancers, survival is the best in North America, followed by Western. It is the lowest in Algeria (where only the Setif region, accounting for 300 cases of cancer, has been studied), Brazil (only two regions, and 1,723 cases studied) and Eastern Europe. For cancers of the breast and prostate, the highest survival rate prevailing in the USA. Japan is number 1 for colorectal cancers in men, and France for colorectal cancer among women.
A Sétif, survival rates five years range from 11.4% for colon cancer for men to 38.8% for breast cancer. In the USA, the figures ranged from 56.4% for cancer of the rectum in men with 91.1% for prostate cancer.
In France, rates ranged from 52.8% for cancer of the rectum in men to 79.8% for breast cancer. The variations are sometimes between countries of Western Europe, for example with less than 40% for prostate cancer in Denmark and 80% in Austria.
In the USA, survival rates are substantially lower among blacks than among whites. The difference is 7% for prostate cancer, and 14%. For breast cancer.
For researchers, these rate differences probably explained by differences in access to diagnosis and treatment "and in investment in the health field. Much of the data for Cuba were excluded from the report, not based on death certificates and not on clinical records that can not be stored for five years in Cuba.
