DRAMATIC improvements in survival mean that almost two thirds of women given a diagnosis of breast cancer today are likely to survive for at least 20 years.

Earlier diagnosis and better treatments have had striking effects on survival, said Professor Michel Coleman, an epidemiologist with Cancer Research UK, presenting a new report in London yesterday.

Even without including new drugs such as Herceptin and the aromatase inhibitors, he said, it is possible to predict that 64 per cent of women newly diagnosed with breast cancer in England and Wales will live for at least 20 years, compared with just 44 per cent in the early 1990s. Seventy-two per cent are now predicted to survive for at least ten years, compared with 54 per cent diagnosed in the early 1990s.

In women aged 50 to 69 — the age group in which breast cancer is most commonly diagnosed — 80 per cent are expected to live for at least 10 years while 72 per cent will survive for at least 20 years.

In practice, these estimates are conservative because they do not include the impact of the new and better drugs, which in trials have been shown to improve survival.

Professor Coleman said that there was still more to be done to reduce the inequalities between rich and poor, and to catch up with some countries in Western Europe in the treatment of cancer patients.

He added that guidance from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence on new drugs should be speeded up to make treatments available to women as quickly as possible. But despite these caveats, the rate of improvement in breast cancer survival is impressive. Since the 1990s it has improved by between 17 and 20 per cent.

“Women are more aware of their breasts and what goes wrong with them, and they are diagnosed earlier than they were ten or 15 years ago” he said. “There is better surgery, more radiotherapy and better chemotherapy.”

The figures come from national cancer registries, databases that record all cases of the disease. Professor Coleman gave warning that the future of such registries was now in doubt. “The national cancer registry is at risk from a misguided approach to confidentiality,” he said. “Cancer causes 27 per cent of deaths every year but is not statutorily registered. Unless this happens then you may not have this information available in the future.”

Tony Howell, a Cancer Research UK consultant medical oncologist at the Christie Hospital in Manchester, paid tribute to the NHS in helping to improve survival rates. “We want to say to women that this is just an incident in their life. Most women with a diagnosis of breast cancer will die from something else,” he said. “These results are highly encouraging for women who are worried about their cancer coming back. They will also encourage women to go for mammography since women with screen-detected cancers fare particularly well.”

• A breast cancer drug which has been found to cut the risk of death by nearly one third was yesterday approved for use by the Scottish Medicines Consortium.

  Taxotere (docetaxel) used in combination with doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide will now become routinely available on the Scottish NHS as a treatment for women with early stage, node-positive, breast cancer who have already had surgery.

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