NHS Performance Indicators : February 2002
| Index | Contacts | HA PIs | Trust PIs | NHS Performance Indicators : February 2002 |
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Health Outcomes6 (viii) Lung cancer survivalRationale Cancer survival is a key operational measure of the underlying effectiveness of treatment for cancer by the NHS. Definition Rate and 95% confidence interval Source of Data Office for National Statistics (ONS) Data Year(s) Diagnosed 1993-95, 1992-94 Construction Demonstrated for 1993-95 Numerator: The observed five year survival rate of patients diagnosed with breast cancer during the periods 1993-95. Office for National Statistics (ONS) data are derived from NHS regional cancer registries and the National Health Service Central Register. Comments on data – Derived from the distribution of survival time from diagnosis to death, or date of emigration or 31 December 2000, of cancer patients who were diagnosed during 1993-95 and resident in England at the time of diagnosis. The HA for each patient is defined by residence at the time of diagnosis. All adults residents of England who were diagnosed with a first primary invasive malignant neoplasm aged 15-99 years during the period 1993-1995 were eligible for analysis. Benign and in situ tumours were excluded. Patients were excluded from the analysis as follows: aged under 15 or 100 or more years at diagnosis; duplicate registration; sex not known or incompatible with the cancer; date(s) or sequence of dates invalid; patients for which 1993-1995 diagnosis was not the first invasive malignant tumour. Denominator: The expected survival rate among the cancer patients, derived from the mortality rates of England residents (age-sex-period specific life-tables) for the period covered by the survival estimates (1993-00). This is the survival rate that would have been expected if the group had the same overall mortality rates as the general population. Calculation: Relative survival rate at five years after diagnosis for patients diagnosed in England during 1993-95 and followed up to 31 December 2000. Cancer patients have higher mortality than the general population but they do not all die of cancer. The relative survival rate is the ratio of the survival rate actually observed among the cancer patients and the survival that would have been expected if they had only had the same overall mortality rates as the general population. By convention, relative survival is described as a “rate”, although strictly it is a ratio of two percentages. Interpretation Higher indicator values reflect higher relative survival rates. |