Almost 1.3 million cancer sufferers in European Union countries are expected to die from their disease this year, a study has shown.
One of the key findings was a big predicted fall in numbers of breast cancer deaths in middle-aged and younger women
But although the overall number is up slightly from 2007, cancer death rates have fallen significantly in the past five years.
The latest estimates indicate rates of 139 deaths per 100,000 men and 85 per 100,000 women in 2012. This represents a fall of 10 per cent for men and seven per cent for women since 2007.
The findings also show that along with Germany, the UK is predicted to have the lowest male cancer death rates in the EU.
Conversely, estimates for female cancer death rates in the UK are high compared with most other EU countries, despite falling by two per cent since 2009.
A team of Swiss and Italian researchers studied trends for all cancers while focusing on specific diseases including those affecting the stomach, lung, prostate, breast and womb.
Drawing on data from the World Health Organisation, the scientists estimated numbers of deaths and death rates for the whole of the EU and six individual countries, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain.
Writing in the Annals of Oncology, they predicted that 717,398 men and 565,703 women in the EU would die from cancer in 2012.
In 2007, the disease killed 706,619 men and 554,515 women.
One of the key findings was a big predicted fall in numbers of breast cancer deaths in middle-aged and younger women. These were forecast to drop by nine per cent overall, and 13 per cent among younger women aged 20 to 49.
Carlo La Vecchia, one of the study leaders from the University of Milan, said: “The fact that there will be substantial falls in deaths from breast cancer, not only in middle age, but also in the young, indicates that important advancements in treatment and management are playing a major role in the decline in death rates, rather than mammographic screening, which is usually restricted to women aged 50-70 in most European countries.
“In general, many important risk factors for breast cancer, including menstrual and reproductive factors, physical activity and obesity, have not changed favourably, and breast cancer incidence has probably not gone down, yet deaths from the disease are declining.”
Breast cancer remained the leading cause of female cancer deaths in the EU, accounting for 15 per cent of deaths. However, in the UK and Poland lung cancer killed more women than breast cancer. Male cancer death rates for the UK were predicted to be 128 per 100,000. This was lower than the estimate for any other EU country apart from Germany, and represented a fall of four per cent since 2009. For women in the UK, cancer death rates of 97.6 per 100,000 were higher than for the EU as a whole, despite a two per cent fall. Rates of pancreatic cancer deaths in the EU showed a disturbing upward trend since 2007. For men, they increased from 7.86 per 100,000 to 8.01 per 100,000, and for women from 5.24 per 100,000 to 5.28. It is believed this could be linked to obesity, or the fact that more cases are being identified.
Co-author Fabio Levi, from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, said: “Although actual numbers of deaths are slightly higher than those recorded for 2007, this is because a greater number of people are living into old age in the EU. The age-adjusted cancer mortality rates show a clear decrease in rates for both men and women over the past five years.
“Apart from lung cancer in women and pancreatic cancer, the fall in mortality rates from six major cancers in six major European countries and in the EU as a whole essentially reflects the decline in tobacco smoking in men, and the continuing progress in cancer prevention, early detection and treatment.”
In 2003, the European Code Against Cancer set a target to reduce cancer deaths by 15 per cent by 2015. According to the researchers, this target may have already been met.
“The per cent decline estimated by 2012 (since 2003) is 18 per cent in men and 13 per cent in women,” the authors wrote.