UK falls behind on child cancer

Five-year cancer survival rates for children in England, Wales and Scotland are below average for Europe and fall well short of many other countries, a report showed today.

The Eurocare-3 report, which followed 23,000 children in 20 countries, showed there was much room for improvement in Britain's record amid average five-year survival rates for all childhood cancers across Europe of 71.8 per cent.

In Scotland the rate was 71 per cent and in England and Wales 71.1 per cent - bringing the countries in at 12th and 13th out of 20.

Those with high survival rates included Iceland (90.1 per cent) and Finland (81.2 per cent) while the lowest was held by Estonia (45 per cent).