By Ryan Keeling
A new report released by the World Health Organization has revealed that Britain has highest death rate for breast cancer in Europe, while Spain has the lowest rate. But lung cancer kills more women in this country. The report said that around 156,000 people in this country are predicted to die this year succumbing to all forms of the disease.
According to WHO, though the mortality rates are coming down, the number of deaths is stable as the population ages. “Lung, colorectal and breast cancers are the top causes of cancer deaths, and these are showing major changes,” said Professor Carlo La Vecchia of the University of Milan, who led the study, to Telegraph.
“Despite these favorable trends in cancer death rates in Europe the number of cancer deaths remains approximately stable, due to the ageing of the population. Further, there is a persisting gap in cancer mortality between central and eastern European countries compared to Western Europe, and this is likely to persist for the foreseeable future,” added La Vecchia.
The research was published today in the Annals of Oncology. The researchers studied the WHO figures for cancer deaths across Europe in 2007. La Vecchia and his colleagues also used EUROSTAT population estimates to predict how many will die due to tumors this year.
The research also found that Britain has lower mortality rates than any other country among men except Germany. “Conversely, total female cancer mortality rates in the UK are high compared with the EU and the other studied countries (with the exception of Poland), but they fell 8 per cent with a predicted rate of 95.6/100,000 women in 2011,” said La Vecchia.
