I have been asked to reply.
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.
Letter from Jil Matheson, dated 31 March 2008:
The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking what the survival rates for (a) breast, (b) colon and (c) cervical cancer were in the latest period for which figures are available. I am replying in her absence. [196551]
The latest available survival rates for 21 common cancers among adult patients in England diagnosed during 1999-2003 and followed up to the end of 2004 are available on the National Statistics website at:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/Product.asp?vlnk=14007&Pos=1&ColRank=1&Rank=192
One- and five-year survival rates relating to (a) breast, (b) colon and (c) cervical cancer are given in the table below.
Percentage Cancer3 One-year relative survival Five-year relative survival Breast Women 94.2 81.0 Colon Men 68.6 49.6 Women 68.5 50.8 Cervix Women 81.5 63.0 1 As cancer survival varies with age at diagnosis, the relative rates for all ages (15-99) have been age-standardised to control for changes in the age profile of cancer patients over time, thus making them comparable with previously published figures. 2 Aged 15-99 years. 3 Cancers registered in 1999 to 2003 are defined by codes in the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD10). Therefore, breast cancer is defined by code C50, colon cancer by code C18 and cervical cancer by code C53. Source: Office for National Statistics.