RICH people are much more likely to survive cancer than the poor and the gap has grown in the past 15 years, researchers have found.

They estimate that, if the gap were closed, 3,000 fewer people would die every year.

The British Journal of Cancer study, partly funded by Cancer Research UK, looked at five-year survival rates of 2.2 million cancer patients between 1986 and 1999. The rates were compared with a “deprivation index” measured by electoral ward.

Michel Coleman, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who led the research, said that while all survival rates had improved, the rich had benefited disproportionately. They found a difference in 28 of the 33 cancers studied. Cancers with the highest deprivation gap included colon and rectum cancer in men and breast cancer in women.

“We have to ask whether the poorest people in society are getting equitable access to the optimal treatment,” Professor Coleman said.

The researchers suggested that the less well off may be less confident in their dealings with the NHS and may be less inclined to use health services.

This meant that, when their cancer was finally diagnosed, it would be at a later stage, making it more difficult to treat, and with a lower likelihood of survival. Poor people also tended to reveal their symptoms later, but that alone did not explain overall trends.

The most striking gap was seen with bowel cancer. Every five years survival rates for colon cancer improved by 5.6 per cent and for rectal cancer rates improved by 7.4 per cent in men and 8.1 per cent in women. But from 1996 to 1999, there was a 9.4 per cent difference in survival between the richest and poorest men and an 8.3 per cent difference in women.

While none of the experts could explain with any certainty the reason for the increase in the deprivation gap, they agreed that more needed to be done to educate the poorer sections of society and to raise cancer awareness.

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