More people are surviving cancer in Northern Ireland but the higher you are on the earnings scale the better are your chances of living longer, a new study has found.
There was "significant and continuous" improvement in one-year and five-year relative survival for all cancers from 1993-2003, according to the report from the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry (NICR) of Queen's University, Belfast.
The study found male mortality rates dropped by 1.3 per cent between 1993 and 2004, while the level of female deaths went down by 0.8 per cent during the same period. Between 1993 and 2004 there were on average 4,318 male and 4,414 female cases of cancer diagnosed each year.
Excluding the less serious non-melanoma skin cancers, there were 1,863 male and 1,746 female deaths from cancer each year.
Given the higher number of female cases, the "crude" indication was that survival was lower among males.
The figures also reveal that half of female cancer patients survive after five years compared to four out of 10 male patients surviving over the same period.
This was attributed to males having a higher percentage of cancers such as lung cancer which have a poor survival rate. The more common female cancers, such as breast cancer, have higher survival rates.
The NICR report predicted that five-year survival would improve further for patients diagnosed in the period 2001-2004.
The study also indicated that increasing incidences of cancer and deaths in certain areas of Northern Ireland were in line with the deprivation in these areas. The 20 per cent most deprived areas have significantly higher levels of cancer.
While tobacco use in males and females is now similar, the effects of tobacco use in the population 20 to 30 years ago, when men smoked at least twice as much as women, was evident in cancer rates. "This has resulted in levels of lung, stomach and oesophageal cancer in males, which is one and a half times those in females," said Dr Anna Gavin, director of NICR.
"Unfortunately these cancers have poor relative survival - lung cancer at five years is 9 per cent, stomach 17 per cent and oesophagus 13 per cent.
"In addition, people with a tobacco-related cancer tend also to have other tobacco-related diseases, especially heart disease, which reduces the chance of a full recovery," said Dr Gavin.
The North's health minister, Michael McGimpsey, described the finding of higher cancer survival rates as heartening. He said he was committed to improving access to treatment and specialist drugs.
