Lack of quality care and treatment among blood cancer patients in Europe determines the survival rates and a wide gap is seen between different regions in the continent, a new research shows.
According to the researchers, for the past 11 years there has been an increase of 5 years of survival among blood cancer patients.
The EUROCARE study assessed data from 30 cancer registries with patients diagnosed in 20 European countries. They compared changes in 5-year survival rates for more than 560 400 adults (aged 15 years and older) diagnosed with 11 lymphoid and myeloid cancers between 1997 and 2008.
Researchers found improvement in the survival rates in areas such as northern and central Europe. However, some eastern Europe countries continue to have lower survival rates.
The improved numbers are a result of the introduction of new drugs like Rituximab for non -Hodgkin lymphoma and Imatinib for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML).
"The uptake and use of new technologies and effective treatments has been far slower in eastern Europe than other regions. This might have contributed to the large differences in the management and outcomes of patients," study lead author, Dr Milena Sant from the Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori in Milan, Italy, said in a press release.
According to the researchers, higher survival rates were found across board for all malignancies except myelodsplastic syndrome.
"We know that rituximab, imatinib, thalidomide, and bortezomib were first made available for general use in Europe in 1997, 2001, 1998, and 2003, respectively. The years following general release of these drugs coincided with large increases in survival for chronic myeloid leukaemia, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, and follicular lymphoma; with a smaller but still significant survival increase for multiple myeloma plasmacytoma," researchers wrote.
Sant explains that high resolution studies that use clinical records to collect detailed clinical information for representative samples of cancer registry cases can directly link treatments and clinical characteristics to survival.
The study was published in the journal The Lancelot Oncology.
