Oesophageal cancer survival statistics

Population-based five-year relative survival rates for all patients diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in 2000-01 in England and Wales were 8% for both men and women (30% for men and 27% for women at one year after diagnosis). 1 Similar rates are reported for Scotland. 2

An earlier study of patients in England and Wales estimated that five-year survival had improved by 1% for each quinquennium between 1971-75 and 1986-90 and suggested that this might be due to reductions in peri-operative mortality. 3

Women tend to have slightly higher survival rates than men ( Figure 3.1).

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One of the reasons for low survival rates is that many of the patients (40% in the Scottish Audit study) have severe co-existing medical conditions which preclude them from certain treatments 2.

In the Scottish study, one year survival for gastric and oesophageal cancer patients with minimal pre-morbid disease was 39.7% compared with 19.1% for patients with significant co-existing disease.

Many patients are also elderly (median age of gastric and oesophageal cancer patients in the Scottish Audit was 72 years) and survival decreases with increasing age. This is illustrated in Figure 3.2 using data for oesophageal cancer patients diagnosed in England and Wales in 1986-1990.

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