Half of people in England and Wales now being diagnosed with cancer will survive at least a decade, double the rate in the early 1970s, figures show. New treatments have played a role as well as earlier diagnosis and screening. But Cancer Research UK, which carried out the research, said the progress showed there needed to be new, more ambitious aims.
It said it wanted to see 10-year survival hit 75% in the next 20 years. And it promised to increase investment in research by half within the next decade to help achieve that. Researchers said cancer need no longer be viewed as the "death sentence" it once was with the new figures suggesting a "tipping point" had been reached.
The analysis showed that in 1971-2, 50% of people diagnosed with cancer died within a year. Now 50% survive for at least a decade – up from 24% in 1971-2. But the findings, based on the outcomes for more than 7 million patients, also showed that for some cancers, survival rates were still very low.