HEALTH: Iceland, Finland, Switzerland and Sweden have the best childhood cancer survival rates in Europe and have set a standard for other nations to emulate, a leading health expert said yesterday.
Five-year survival rates ranged from a high of 90 per cent in Iceland and about 80 per cent in Finland, Sweden and Switzerland to a low of 45 per cent in Estonia and a European average of nearly 72 per cent.
"The gold standard is the survival levels of the Nordic countries. Other nations with similar resources and health systems can do the same," said Dr Gemma Gatta of the National Tumour Institute in Milan.
Dr Gatta and her team analysed data on 23,000 children diagnosed with cancer in 20 European countries between 1990-1994 for the EUROCARE-3 study funded by the European Union. The results are reported in the Annals of Oncology journal.
The aim of the report is to identify countries and areas where help is needed to enable children with cancer to live longer.
"There is room for improvement. So large a gap in survival rates in not acceptable in Europe," Dr Gatta said.
Sweden, Germany, Norway, Austria, Malta, France and Italy had better than average survival rates but Denmark, England, Wales, Scotland, Spain, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Poland and Estonia fell below it.
Cancer is comparatively rare in children and the majority of cancers are curable or respond to treatment. Improvements in chemotherapy drugs, which are now more effective and less toxic, and a better understanding of how to treat cancers in children have pushed up survival rates, which have improved since the previous, EUROCARE-2, study was published in 2001.
Dr Gatta does not know why the range is so wide between countries but she noted that more children in Nordic nations are involved in clinical trials and the standard of care and the quality of the medical centres is high.
Among the factors that influence survival are early diagnosis, access to latest treatments and resources.