Survival of Danish cancer patients 1943-1987. Female genital organs.

In Denmark, about 1800 new cases of cancer of the female genital organs (i.e., uterine cervix, uterine corpus and ovary) occur every year. The similarity in incidence contrasts with the differences in survival patterns for these three cancer types, the crude five-year survival rates being 59% (cervix), 68% (corpus) and 27% (ovary). An overall increase in relative one-, two- and five-year survival rates was observed for cancers of the cervix, corpus and ovary between 1943 and 1987. For uterine cervical cancer there has been an equal improvement in one-, two- and five-year survival rates (12, 11 and 14%), whereas for uterine corpus cancer a greater improvement was seen in the five-year rates (19%) than in those one year after diagnosis (10%). These figures are contrasted by those for ovarian cancer, for which the improvement in one-year survival rate (21%) was nearly twice that for the five-year survival rate (12%). For all the three cancer types, the age at diagnosis increased significantly over the past 40 years. The improvement in survival from cancer of the uterine corpus was most pronounced for older women whereas that for ovarian cancer was greatest among women aged 59 or less. After 1970, there was a decrease in survival rates after cervical cancer among women 60 years or older at the time of diagnosis. This is in contrast to the pattern for younger women (less than 40 at diagnosis), whose survival rate has increased continuously since 1943.