A Cancer Council Victoria study shows more than 60 per cent of people diagnosed with cancer will not die within five years of their diagnosis. This is a 13 per cent increase in survival rates between 1990 and 2004.
Cancers with the highest survival rates include testicular, thyriod, melanoma and breast cancers.
Those with the lowest include pancreas, liver and lung cancer.
Professor David Hill of the Cancer Council says the data shows a gradual improvement in survival rates.
"There has been a small increase but of course that's been the history of our efforts against cancer, but if one is reporting small increases repeatedly over time, that adds up to big increases," he said.
"But these days they don't show the results of any great breakthrough in cancer treatment because we haven't had that."
Professor Hill says survival rates between the city and other areas are small, but warrant further investigation.
"The difference between regions and the metropolis is very slight, two or three per cent only," he said.
"That's a small difference, we don't know why that is but its certainly an issue we want to explain with improved data collection systems." SOURCE: © 2007 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
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