new hormonal and chemotherapies. advances in radiotherapy. plus improvements in detection and public awareness. myrate mackenzie who s 69 and from surrey was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002 after finding a swelling under her arm. she s grateful for all her treatment, but remembers feeling very scared at the beginning. i had no idea what my future was going to be, you know, how long i was going to live, oranything, and i had the chemotherapy, then surgery, radiotherapy, drug therapy, so, the whole book thrown at me, but it s clearly worked. but there are concerns about the current state of cancer care with severe staff shortages. the charity breast cancer now says many patients are waiting far too long for a diagnosis and for treatment and without urgent action we risk seeing decades of progress unravelling. live now to cambridge. also taking part in the study, welcome. thank you for being with us how important is this research? is mainly about being able to offer reassur
Years of diagnosis and they were 20 - years of diagnosis and they were 20 years - years of diagnosis and they were 20 years ago. - years of diagnosis and they were 20 years ago. the - - years of diagnosis and they were 20 years ago. the art - - years of diagnosis and they - were 20 years ago. the art medical editor has more details. this is reassuring news for patients regarding the uk s most common cancer. more than 55,000 women and nearly 400 men are diagnosed with breast cancer each year. researchers at oxford university tracked around half a million women in england with early invasive breast cancer that had not spread elsewhere in the body. all had surgery as their primary treatment. it found those diagnosed in the 1990s had a11i% chance of dying from the disease in the first five years. but for those diagnosed from 2010 it was much lower, at 5%. it means most women whose disease is caught early can expect to be long term cancer survivors. so what s behind the improvement? c