Cancer Research UK: Registration needed

Hilary Tovey, Cancer Research UK’s policy manager, comments on breast cancer figures:

“This research highlights the great progress we’ve made in reducing deaths from breast cancer over the past 20 years. The UK has seen greater decreases in the number of women dying from breast cancer than many other European countries over this period, though this is partly because death rates were relatively high in the 1980s. Reorganising breast cancer services, screening, improved awareness and better treatments made possible as a result of excellent research, have all had a role to play.

“In order to make accurate comparisons between cancer survival in different European countries, we must measure like with like. For more meaningful comparisons, improved cancer registration is needed.”