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Survival > Net survival is the survival of cancer patients compared with the expected survival of the general population. All survival estimates here are net survival estimates.

Index of cancer survival for CCGs

A convenient single number that summarises the trend of net cancer survival over a 16-year period. It combines the survival estimates for each sex and age group for breast cancer (women only), colorectal (bowel) cancer, lung cancer and all other invasive cancers (excluding non-melanoma skin cancer and prostate cancer). Estimates of survival trends in the Index of cancer survival for adults are published for Clinical Commissioning Groups, Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships, Cancer Alliances and England

Cancer survival in England: adult, stage at diagnosis, childhood and geographical patterns

Age-standardised survival estimates are available for adults for 31 common cancers between 1-year and 5-year in England. For 23 of these cancers, estimates of survival by stage at diagnosis between 1-year and 5-year in England are also included. Cancer survival estimates for NHS regions, Cancer Alliances and Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships are also available for 22 cancer sites.

Cancer life tables

Life tables used to measure background mortality when estimating net survival which are stratified by year, age, sex, region and socio-economic status. These are published as a resource for other analysts to use.

The survival estimates presented are age-standardised for adult, stage and childhood cancer. Age-standardisation allows for comparisons between population groups and over time. The adult survival estimates use the International Cancer Survival Standard (ICSS) weighting system. The childhood estimates are age-standardised by giving equal weight to each age group (0 to 4, 5 to 9 and 10 to 14 years). They are standardised to allow for more robust comparisons between males and females, years and geographical areas.

Data presented are taken from the annual snapshot from the National Disease Registration CancerAnalysis System.

Cancer in adults is defined using the International Statistical Classification of Diseases 10th Revision (ICD-10). Cancer in children is defined using the third edition of the International Classification of Childhood Cancer (ICCC-3). Different classification systems are used for adults and children because of the different patterns of cancer in children and adults.

More information about how these statistics are estimated can be found in the Quality and Methodology Information (QMI) reports for the cancer survival statistical bulletins: Cancer survival statistical bulletins QMI and the index of survival bulletin: Index of cancer survival QMI.