Cancer kills 40 per cent of all the men and women who die prematurely between the ages of 25 and 74 in the UK, it has been revealed.
Figures released today by Cancer Research UK shows that cancer is the cause of more premature deaths than heart disease, stroke, AIDS, traffic accidents, murder and suicide.
Across all age groups cancer kills around 73,000 more people each year than coronary heart disease and around 78,000 more than the respiratory diseases. These three diseases are the main causes of death in the UK.
Lung cancer is the biggest cancer killer, causing around 35,000 deaths a year followed by bowel cancer (around 16,000) and then breast cancer (around 11,700).
Despite the rise in the number of people developing cancer, death rates from the disease have fallen dramatically over the last forty years. And there are more people surviving cancer than ever before thanks to new research finding better treatments.
Professor Peter Johnson, Cancer Research UK’s chief clinician, said: “We have had great success in reducing the death rate from many types of cancer in the last decade. But far too many people are still dying from this devastating disease and we clearly have much more work to do.”
Pancreatic and lung cancer have the lowest five year survival rates – with only around 4 per cent of people surviving pancreatic cancer for more than 5 years and around 7 per cent surviving lung cancer for at least five years.
Dr Julie Sharp, senior science information manager at Cancer Research UK, said: “We must redouble our efforts to ensure that our research continues to find new ways to improve and refine diagnosis and treatment so that cancer becomes a disease people live with rather than die from, irrespective of the type of cancer or their age.”
