Heard some great news on BBC radio today. Apparently the advances in cancer treatments now mean that those people suffering from breast, bowel and ovary cancer are living on average 10 years longer than they were in the 1970's while those patient with leukaemia are living four times longer than they were in the 70's. I know that it often seems like it is an age before drugs and other treatments make it through the testing and approval stage but these figures put into perspective just how far we have come over the past 40 years. Keep it up guys!

peggy - cancer is a scary thought and those improvements in survival give us some hope. It would be great to know of the different types of cancer and the prognosis for them. My understanding is that some types of cancer have almost immediate fatal outcomes. Certainly, the drug companies are working in oncology on specialised treatments but there is still much work that needs to be done in this area.

Hi there Amo

Yes cancer is a scary thought but the advances are ongoing and gathering pace. There are some that used to be instant death sentences, and one of those was cancer ovary a very aggressive cancer that because of the anatomical position of the ovaries and the space around them, often failed to give any symptoms until it was too late and with the aggressive nature of that disease, it had spread and claimed its victims quickly. To see it amongst the three mentioned with survival rates extended by 10 years is a great encouraging sign!

I think that breast cancer must be one of the success stories. Gone are the days when women routinely had mastectomies for cancer, nowadays lumpectomy is the treatment of choice, wherever possible often with breast reconstruction being offered if necessary. This disease is very common and the figures are currently one in three whom en, which is a frightening thought. However with treatment and survival improving all the time it is no longer something to be mortally afraid of.