How more of us are beating cancer

In 2002, Joseph Rick was diagnosed with an aggressive skin cancer and told he had three months to live. More than 10 years later, he's hailed as a super survivor thanks to an experimental immunotherapy drug. Photo: Linda Freund/WSJ

Good news ... more Australians are being diagnosed with cancer but more are surviving the disease. Picture: Thinkstock Source: Supplied

MORE of us are getting cancer but we're more likely to survive the big C with nearly one million Australians diagnosed with the disease in the last 28 years still alive.

Better screening that picks up cancer earlier and improved treatments mean we're slowly winning the war on the disease responsible for three in ten deaths in Australia.

The latest analysis of the disease by the Australian Institute Health and Welfare has found the chance of surviving cancer five years after diagnosis has risen from 46 per cent in 1982-1986 to 67 per cent in 2007-2011.

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Cancer screening ... picks up cancer early and improves survival rates. Picture: Supplied Source: Supplied

And the overall mortality rate from cancer has dropped by 20 per cent.

In 1982 there were 209 cancer deaths per 100,000 but this year there are just 168 cancer deaths per 100,000 people, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare spokesman Justin Harvey said.

This improvement in survival comes even though the number of new cancer cases more than doubled between 1982 and 2014 with 123,920 cases diagnosed this year.

More than half the cases diagnosed in 2014 (55 per cent) were in men.

The top five most common cancers for men were prostate, colorectal, melanoma, lung and head and neck cancers. They accounted for almost two thirds of cancers diagnosed in males.

For women, breast, colorectal, melanoma, lung and uterine cancers were the top five most common cancers, accounting for almost two in three cancers diagnosed in women.

Survival rates for some of these common cancers are very high.

Natalie O'Connor, 45, with her children Claudia, 8, and Ned, 6, has fully recovered after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011. Picture: Tara Croser Source: News Limited

Ninety three per cent of men with prostate cancer were alive five years after diagnosis and 88 per cent for melanoma.

In women 94 per cent were alive five years after diagnosis with melanoma and 90 per cent of women survived at least five years after a breast cancer diagnosis.

Lung cancer had the lowest survival rate. Only 13 per cent of men and 17 per cent of women were still alive five years after diagnosis.

The survival rate was highest in younger age groups.

Among young people aged up to 24 the five year survival rate was 86 per cent, among those aged 65 or older it was 57 per cent.

While there were huge improvements in survival for some cancers there was very little improvement for others.

Five year survival rates for cancers of the digestive organs improved from only 10 per cent to 12 per cent, pancreatic cancer from 3.5 per cent to 6.1 per cent and lung cancer from 9 to 14 per cent in the last 28 years.

The five leading causes of cancer death for males were lung, prostate, pancreas and unknown primary site. These cancers were responsible for 51 per cent of all cancer deaths in males.

For women lung, breast, colorectal, pancreas and unknown primary site accounted for 55 per cent of all cancer deaths.

Cancer screening ... like mammograms can pick up the disease early improving survival. Picture: Supplied Source: Supplied

Although screening programs are credited with improving cancer survival rates around half those eligible for screening fail to take it up.

Breast screening identifies 104 invasive cancer for every 10,000 women screened yet only 55 per cent of women aged over fifty undertake the screening.

Eight precancerous abnormalities are found in every 1,000 women who undergo cervical screening but only 58 per cent of women have a biannual Pap smear.

Only one in three Australians aged over 50 who are eligible for bowel cancer screening take it up.

Cancer Council chief Professor Ian Olver said one of the key reasons more people were being diagnosed with cancer was the ageing of the population.

"There are more people in the age group more likely to get cancer," he said.

The other factor driving up diagnosis was that more people were being screened for cancer.

"The really good news is the fact that survival is improving due to the introduction of screening for breast, cervix and bowel cancer and better treatments for particular diseases like breast cancer to prevent recurrence," he said.

Originally published as How more of us are beating cancer

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