Survival of cancer patients in Italy in the nineties: the importance of population based data.

This monograph shows 5-year survival data for over 200,000 cancer patients diagnosed within 1994 and followed-up to 31.12.99. These population based figures are provided by the Italian network of cancer registries, which covers over 7 million inhabitants. The overall survival rate is 37% in men and 56% in women, with an increase of about 6 percentage points in comparison to the previous period. Survival increases for cancers at good prognosis, as for example breast, colorectal and melanoma. No improvement is observed for more lethal cancers, like liver, pancreas or brain. These results are better than the corresponding ones recently observed in greater London, but worse, particularly in men, of those observed in the USA and Switzerland. A comparison within the country confirms the previous observations of less good results for southern Italy and homogeneous results in other regions.