MORE Australians are being diagnosed with cancer but fewer patients are dying from it, with around 90 per cent of those diagnosed with breast and prostate cancers surviving beyond five years.
A report released today by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows that overall, the number of patients with cancer still alive five years after diagnosis has increased from 47 to 66 per cent since 1982.
But there were wide variations for different cancers, with some of the worst five-year survival rates of less than 10 per cent for pancreatic cancer and mesothelioma.
Survival rates were high for some of Australia's most common cancers, including breast (89 per cent), prostate (92 per cent) and melanoma (91 per cent).
Fewer patients survived bowel cancer, which had a five-year survival rate of 66 per cent, but Cancer Council chief executive Ian Olver said survival should increase into the future with improved treatment and diagnosis, including through a fully implemented bowel screening program.
Professor Olver said rising cancer rates - up 27 per cent since 1982 - were due to an ageing population, but the overall survival trends were encouraging.
He called for a greater focus on some of the deadliest cancers, including lung cancer, which had a five-year survival rate of 14 per cent.
''Research has to be directed to the cancers where we've made little headway,'' he said.
''If you look at figures for the funding of research and plot that against death rates, breast cancer and lymphoma are getting a lot of money and lung cancer and mesothelioma are not, so we need to perhaps shift the research dollars,'' he said.
''We have not had any very significant breakthroughs that have changed the survival of lung cancer - and that's why prevention messages, particularly not smoking, are so important.''
The report noted slightly higher survival rates for women compared to men, and for people who lived in major cities compared with those in regional and remote areas.
Professor Olver said the geographical differences were possibly due to later diagnosis and access to treatment, and were ''something we have to be aware of in Australia and try to correct''.
The cancers with the largest gains in five-year survival were kidney cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and prostate cancer.
Five-year survival from prostate cancer jumped from 58 per cent in 1982-1987 to 92 per cent in 2006-2010, but Professor Olver said the figures may reflect earlier diagnosis without improved outcomes.
''We know more men are having PSA [prostate specific antigen] tests so they are having cancer diagnosed earlier, but it doesn't mean they do any better,'' he said.
A recent study of prostate cancer surgery found it did not appear to save the lives of men with early stage disease but caused high rates of incontinence and erectile dysfunction.
