Malta registered the largest increase in the survival rate of prostate cancer among 29 European countries in a seven-year period, according to a study just published in a leading medical journal.

The island also made great strides in the number of women who survived breast cancer for at least five years from diagnosis between 2000 and 2007, placing just second to Iceland.

Prostrate is the most common cancer among Maltese men, while breast cancer is the most widespread among Maltese women and also the biggest killer.

The findings, published online in The Lancet Oncology three days ago, analysed data from cancer registries covering 29 countries to compare five-year survival rates from diagnosis for more than nine million adults.

The Eurocare-5 study – covering more than 50 per cent of Europe’s adult population – embarked on assessing the impact of major changes in cancer diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation that occurred in the early 2000s.

Malta made a leap of 10.2 percentage points (from 79 per cent in 2000 to 89.2 per cent in 2007) in the five-year survival rate of men diagnosed with prostate cancer.

It made similar improvements in reducing the deaths of women diagnosed with breast cancer boosting the survival rate by seven percentage points to 84 per cent between 2000 and 2007.

“In breast cancer the five-year survival is now better than the EU average and similar or better than many large EU countries. These results are very important as breast cancer is the commonest cancer in Malta,” Gordon Caruana Dingli, consultant breast surgeon and head of Mater Dei Hospital’s Breast Clinic, told The Sunday Times of Malta.

The healthcare offered in Malta is top notch and the island has a lot to be proud of

Welcoming this good news, he attributed these improvements to a myriad of forces, among them a spike in awareness that saw women presenting themselves straight away once they noticed a lump.

The successful trend also coincides with the creation of the Breast Clinic at St Luke’s Hospital back in 2000, which with the support of two NGOs, generated a lot of awareness and saw patients presenting earlier with smaller breast tumours.

Mr Caruana Dingli and Dr Karl German, head of urology at Mater Dei, also believed the weekly multidisciplinary meetings where the expertise of healthcare professionals was pooled for each patient contributed to an increased survival rate. Early, accurate diagnosis, advances in surgery and chemotherapy as well as improved cancer treatment, will all have had an impact on improved survival rates, they said.

The Eurocare findings reflect a trend in breast cancer that has been sustained between 1995 and 2011 – figures released in the Malta Medical Journal show an increasing trend of new cases to 350 per year in 2011 from 180 in 1995, but a decreasing mortality rate.

However, Mr Caruana Dingli had one note of caution to make – one of the risk factors of breast cancer was obesity and excess fat in the body was converted into oestrogens, worsening the prognosis of breast cancer patients.

“There is a worrying trend for the Maltese to put on weight and this problem must be tackled if we want to further improve the survival of breast cancer patients in the future.”

“Overall, the Breast Clinic is very proud of the excellent results from this Eurocare study and also of having been classified as ‘a centre of excellence’ by Johns Hopkins International,” he said. Dr German too welcomed the “quantum leap” Malta made to improve patients’ five-year survival of prostate cancer patients through improved screening facilities, diagnosis and treatment.

He acknowledged that Malta had had some catching up to do, but it gained momentum over the years, even surpassing the European average of 83.4 per cent by 1.5 percentage points.

Dr German referred to the introduction of free PSA screening tests for prostate cancer in polyclinics that were the most sensitive tumour markers that existed in the detection of cancer.

“Hats off to the availability of these tests in clinic, which combined with awareness among doctors and patients, better techniques for diagnosis, and improved radiology have contributed to the improved results,” he said.

Dr German said it could be argued that the better results obtained by countries in northern and central Europe meant they were being more aggressive in looking for prostate cancer, but this could also lead to overdiagnosis.

“So this does not mean Malta is lagging behind or that our treatment is incorrect or inadequate, it could be that my team and I are more conservative in our approach to the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer,” he said.

There is a worrying trend for the Maltese to put on weight

Malta also made huge progress in the survival rates of ovarian cancer – the third biggest killer of women on the island –registering an improvement of 14 percentage points between 2000-2007. However, the five-year survival rate, although higher than the European average of 37.6 per cent, remains low at 39.3 per cent.

The island also has a low five-year survival rate for lung cancer, the major killer among Maltese men, with just 10.3 per cent, lagging behind the European average of 13 per cent.

However, when it comes to skin melanoma, the island has a very high survival rate of 87.7 per cent, above the European average of 83.2 per cent. In the seven-year period under review the island succeeded in improving the five-year survival rate from diagnosis by 14.4 points.

“The healthcare offered in Malta is top notch and the island has a lot to be proud of,” Dr German said.

Top five improvements in cancer survival rates*

* Figures show percentage point increases in the 5-year relative survival rates for adult patients with cancer diagnosed between 2000 and 2007. The actual survival rate for this seven-year period is in brackets.

Source: The Lancet Oncology

Additional reporting Kurt Sansone.