title: Cancer survival in England and Wales at the end of the 20th century.
abstract: Survival has risen steadily since the 1970s for most cancers in adults in England and Wales, but persistent inequalities exist between those living in affluent and deprived areas. These differences are not seen for children. For many of the common adult cancers, these inequalities in survival (the 'deprivation gap') became more marked in the 1990s. This volume presents extended analyses of survival for adults diagnosed during the 14 years 1986-1999 and followed up to 2001, including trends in overall survival in England and Wales and trends in the deprivation gap in survival. The analyses include individual tumour data for 2.2 million cancer patients. This article outlines the structure of the supplement - an article for each of the 20 most common cancers in adults, followed by an expert commentary from one of the leading UK clinicians specialising in malignancies of that organ or system. The available data, quality control and methods of analysis are described here, rather than repeated in each of the 20 articles. We open the discussion between clinicians and epidemiologists on how to interpret the observed trends and inequalities in cancer survival, and we highlight some of the most important contrasts in these very different points of view. Survival improved substantially for adult cancer patients in England and Wales up to the end of the 20th century. Although socioeconomic inequalities in survival are remarkably persistent, the overall patterns suggest that these inequalities are largely avoidable.
authors.affiliation: Cancer Research UK Cancer Survival Group, Non-Communicable Disease Epidemiology Unit, Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London WC1E 7HT, UK. bernard.rachet@lshtm.ac.uk
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rachet
authors.forename: L M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Woods
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Mitry
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Riga
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Cooper
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Quinn
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Steward
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Brenner
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Estève
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sullivan
authors.forename: M P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Coleman
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D004739:England / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D005544:Forecasting; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000266:history / Q000401:mortality*; D012042:Registries; D012923:Social Class; D016019:Survival Analysis; D014852:Wales / Q000453:epidemiology