Progress with therapy helps reduce cancer death rate

But although the overall number is up slightly from 2007, cancer death rates have fallen significantly in the past five years.

The latest estimates indicate rates of 139 deaths per 100,000 men and 85 per 100,000 women in 2012.

This represents a fall of 10 per cent for men and seven per cent for women since 2007.

The findings also show that along with Germany, the UK is predicted to have the lowest male cancer death rates in the EU, a fall of four per cent since 2009.

Estimates for female cancer death rates in the UK remain high compared with most other EU countries, despite falling by two per cent since 2009.

Writing in the Annals of Oncology, researchers predicted a major fall in numbers of breast cancer deaths in middle-aged and younger women, with a drop of nine per cent overall and 13 per cent among younger women aged 20 to 49.

Professor Carlo La Vecchia, of the University of Milan, said: “The fact that there will be substantial falls in deaths from breast cancer, not only in middle age, but also in the young, indicates that important advancements in treatment and management are playing a major role in the decline in death rates, rather than mammographic screening, which is usually restricted to women aged 50-70 in most European countries.”

Breast cancer remained the leading cause of female cancer deaths in the EU, accounting for 15 per cent of deaths. However, in the UK and Poland lung cancer killed more women than breast cancer.