Cancer survival in Wales has improved over two decades, but the gap between rich and poor areas has not closed
Cancer survival in Wales has improved significantly over the past two decades, but the gap between the most and least deprived areas of the country has widened after the pandemic and the five-year survival rate for people in the most deprived communities has not improved in a decade.
New figures published today by the Welsh Cancer Intelligence and Surveillance Unit at Public Health Wales cover cancer diagnoses from 2002 to 2022, and show that 75 per cent of people diagnosed with cancer in Wales during 2018 to 2022 survived one year from diagnosis, with 60 per cent surviving five years.
Both figures represent a substantial improvement from the early 2000s, when one-year survival stood at around 66 per cent and five-year survival at around 50 per cent.
Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, which covers north Wales including Flintshire, recorded one-year survival of 72.8 per cent and five-year survival of 58.3 per cent for the same period, in line with the Wales average and not statistically significantly different from it.
The health board’s one-year survival rate has risen by more than six percentage points since the earliest period in the data, a pattern that mirrors the Wales-wide improvement.
However, the data shows a persistent and widening divide between people diagnosed with cancer in the most and least deprived areas of Wales.
For the 2018 to 2022 cohort, five-year survival in the least deprived areas of Wales stood at 64.5 per cent.
In the most deprived areas, the figure was 52.3 per cent.
That 12.2 percentage point gap means that in the most deprived communities in Wales, roughly three in ten people diagnosed with cancer do not survive five years — a proportion that has remained unchanged since the 2014-2018 cohort.
In the same period, five-year survival in the least deprived areas continued to rise.
The report notes that the disruption to cancer screening programmes, GP referrals and diagnostic services during the pandemic may have affected the stage at which cancer was diagnosed differently across deprivation groups.
Professor Dyfed Wyn Huws, Director of the Welsh Cancer Intelligence and Surveillance Unit, said: “It is encouraging to see that overall cancer survival one year from diagnosis has recovered to pre-pandemic levels of around 75 per cent.”
“However, despite this recovery in survival just after the pandemic, averages suggest that overall, one-year and five-year cancer survival by 2022 was much the same as it was in the middle of the last decade.”
“The long-standing gaps in five-year survival between the most and least deprived areas of Wales had remained largely unchanged over the last decade, then widened further after the pandemic.”
The report also shows that colorectal cancer has the widest deprivation gap among the most common cancers in Wales, and that the gap had been narrowing up to the 2017 to 2021 period before widening again.
Prof Huws said: “Diagnosing cancer at an early stage increases the chances of survival.”
“It’s important to seek help straight away from your GP if you are worried about any troubling symptoms, such as losing weight without trying to do so, blood in your poo, a new cough that won’t go away, or a lump in your breast or somewhere else on your body.”
The full report — Cancer Survival in Wales, 2002-2022 — is published by Public Health Wales.
Check live fuel prices near you before you set off.
Spotted something? Got a story? Email news (@) deeside.com
NEW: Add Deeside.com as a preferred source on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
Latest News
