As mortality rate for cancer falls, many still become ill

Illustrated - Cancer Treatment.Photo: Heiko Junge /

The death rate from cancer has fallen in Europe over the past five years, but there are increasing numbers of people getting different forms of the disease since there are more people and more elderly.

A survey launched in the medical journal, Annals of Oncology, on Tuesday estimated that there will be 1.4 million more cancers in the EU this year than last.

The main reason is increased population and a larger percentage of the population is older.

It is mostly elderly people who get cancer, and they often live for a long time with the disease.

Furthermore, the study shows that the risk of dying from cancer generally decreases year by year. The risk is 6% lower now than five years ago. In 2014, there were 139 per 100,000 men in the EU who died of cancer, while this year’s number is likely to be 131.

The decline for women is not as strong, yet significant.

The decrease is 3.6% fewer deaths, from 86 per 100,000 women in 2014 to 83 in 2019.

The increase in the number of cancer diagnoses is 5% in the same time period.

Norwegian decline

The Cancer Registry’s figures show that Norway has had similar development in recent years. The main reason why more people get cancer is also the same here in Norway: more people and more elderly.

There were 33,564 new cancer cases in 2017 showed figures from the Cancer Registry that were updated last week.

There are diagnosed three times as many cancer cases now compared to 50 years ago, and also in Norway, there are more men than women who get cancer. In 2016, nearly 11,000 Norwegians died of cancer.

Although more and more people are getting cancer, more and more are getting healthy. Those who have cancer live longer and have a better quality of life than before according to the Cancer Registry.

Prevention, previous diagnosis and more, better and adapted treatment methods for the various cancers are seen as reasons for this. This has meant that almost everyone who gets some cancers survive.

Most common forms

The European study shows that lung cancer this year will pass breast cancer as the cancer that takes most women’s lives, with 96,800 against 92,800 deaths.

In general, lung cancer is the deadliest cancer in the EU, also in Norway.

Cancer of the lung, colon and rectum, prostate, and breast cancer among women accounted for half of all deaths as a result of cancer in Norway in 2016.

© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today