Cancer Facts

Overall, the number of cancer deaths in the UK is falling. In February 2004, Cancer Research UK reported that cancer deaths had fallen by 12% in total between 1972 and 2002 – by 18% in men and by 6% in women. But underpinning this statistic is a very mixed picture in terms of progress in overcoming the disease.
For example:

• Forty years ago, few children survived childhood leukaemia. Now, the survival rate is 80%.
• Forty years ago, 46% of women diagnosed with breast cancer survived five years or more. Now that figure is also 80%.
• Forty years ago, 3% of people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer survived five years or more. That figure is still 3%.

Each year, around 7,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and there are more than 6,600 deaths. It affects men and women in roughly equal proportions. This type of cancer is the fifth most common cause of cancer death in the UK, and has the lowest survival rate of all cancers – approximately 3% of those diagnosed survive five years or more. There is no early detection test, treatment is limited and there is no cure. Because symptoms generally do not appear until the disease is well advanced, the average survival time after diagnosis is just six months.