UK cancer survival rate doubles since 1970s amid ‘golden age’, report says

In England, only about half of cancers are diagnosed at an early stage, and this proportion has not improved for almost a decade, the study found. Photograph: NHS England/PA

The proportion of people surviving cancer in the UK has doubled since the 1970s amid a “golden age” of progress in diagnosis and treatment, a report says.

Half of those diagnosed will now survive for 10 years or more, up from 24%, according to the first study of 50 years of data on cancer mortality and cases. The rate of people dying from cancer has fallen by 23% since the 1970s, from 328 in every 100,000 people to 252.