What is known?
Survival has improved over time for Australian cancer patients, reflecting advances in early detection and clinical management.
There is increasing interest in the development and estimation of novel concrete measures of survival, or prognosis for newly diagnosed cancer patients.
What is new?
A study has been conducted involving more than 2 million Australians diagnosed with an invasive cancer.
This study calculated the ‘avoided cancer deaths’ (reduced number of cancer deaths within ten years of diagnosis due to survival changes since 1985-1994) for all cancers and 13 leading cancer types.
For all cancers, around 40% of potential cancer deaths within ten years after diagnosis were avoided among males diagnosed during 2005-2014 respectively, compared to if they had experienced the survival outcomes of patients diagnosed in 1985-1994.
Corresponding percentages for females were 29% (n=5,448).
What does this mean?
These improvements reflect advances in cancer diagnostic and/or treatment practices in Australia over past 30 years.
The increasing number of cancer survivors over time is encouraging but poses challenges to these patients, their caregivers, and the medical system in accessing or providing optimal survivorship care.
Contact: Paramita Dasgupta
Reference: Dasgupta P, Cramb S, Kou K, Yu XQ, Baade PD Quantifying the number of cancer deaths avoided due to improvements in cancer survival since the 1980s in the Australian population, 1985-2014. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. 2020. doi: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-20-0299.