r32

Britain has worse cancer survival rates than some third world countries.

DCI Gene Hunt

But is the home of GREAT fish & chips

PeteBrant

There are lots of reasons. I not sure it's fair to blame a particualr government - Especially when advances since 2000 are unlikely to be refelcted in the latest figures.

People need to see thier GP sooner - More facilities for screening need to be available, and of course more funds need to be allocated.


I firmly beleive a worldwide approach to cancer needs to be taken. It is the biggest killer in the world by far (although not in the UK) and a pooling of resources and effort should be made.

We sholdn;t need charities to raise money for cancer reasearch - It shoul dbe one of the worlds biggest priorities.

The Zohan

Agreed sandle-boy!

Sonic'

Not for me, I've had it twice and beat it twice

My own cases set aside, I actually thought we were doing better at surving cancer than previously, and that steps forward are always being made

Leslie

Being in a similar postion and living in hope of course, I have to say my treatment by the doctors and nursing staff etc was very good.

I think those figures are quite old now and hopefully things are a lot better now.

Les

OllyK

All bar the first are largely down to government policy / funding and the former coudl be addressed by a government awareness campaign.

It doesen't even register in the top 10 for the developing world - http://www.alertnet.org/topkillerdiseases.htm

And the top 3 worldwide seem to be TB, Malaria and AIDS
TB Alert: TB worldwide

PeteBrant

Hmm... Surprising.. However...

We have cures for all of those, AIDS aside, and that is virtually beaten now, whith drug complexes, you need never go on to develop fill blown AIDS from HIV, and people can look forward to an almost normal life expectancy.

Diseases that kill in the developing world is purely a money issue, not a reaseach one. We have the cures

If those money issues were sorted out, then surely cancer would become the worlds biggest killer, on account of effectively having no cure

OllyK

Maybe, however, for women at least heart disease seems to be the biggest killer in the west. You perhaps have to ask why cancer is so low on the list in developing countries and I do have to wonder if many of them (not all) are largely down to our lifestyle.

PeteBrant

Ohabsolutely. I think our lifestyle has a massive impact on Cancer rates, and it is an absolute certainty for Heart Disease (the UK's biggest killer).

kingofturds

iTrader: (1)

Only going to get worse imo obesity on the rise, and cases of liver cancer going through the roof

Sonic'

In my home town, the sheer amount of people my folks age dying of cancer is quite high

A lot of people put it down to the old sellophone factory from 20-30 years ago

It was known back then for clothes to rot on the washing lines after only being out in the garden for several hours, especially those living in the same street as the factory

It has long since been pulled down and flattened, but they can never do anything with the land due to the toxic chemicals that are still stored there underground

pslewis

Political Threads are no longer allowed - behave yourselves!!

The Zohan

No, to be fair - your policital threads are no longer allowed

Jamie

Hmmm i will wait for your next one then pete

pslewis

No, I will do as I'm told ............... if it is now SN Policy for no Political Threads then I will abide by it - I have always sat happily with the Terms and Conditions.

r32

Me too, currently in remission from the second bout, so thats why I have a personal interest in this. So I didnt post this as a political statement, but one in three of us will suffer from this terrible disease, survival rates are increasing but not as quickly as they should be in the UK.
Thankfully most of my treatment has been private, so no long waits, not even for radiotherapy (NHS).
But in my case in the first place it was identified fairly early during a work medical. However at the time the best treatment was not available on the NHS and without private care I wouldnt be here today.

I do agree if its picked up early then your chances improve considerably. Its this early identification thats the key and I dont feel we do a good job of that in the UK.

Sonic'

Diagnosis has always been difficult IMO or at the very least left far too late because of the way things are within the Health Service

I do think they do a great job when they do, but getting the timescales and diagnosis are the biggest battles

I didnt go private, was seen pretty quicklly and my consultant was fantastic all the way through, in fact pretty much everybody was fanstastic, I got early diagnosis and after two years it came back and again was picked up on early diagnosis due to me still being on remission from the 1st bout

It annoys me with the elderly, that all too often diagnosis isn't usually made until it is too far spread, too late to even attempt to cure, because in the main GP's just assume that the elderly are old and hence just old age settling in, and not something more sinister

I have seen it happen so many times too

Leslie

Whats it like to become uninfracted?

Les