KEY POINTS:
New Zealanders die from cancer at a significantly greater rate than Australians.
The average cancer death rate among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development member states was 171 per 100,000 people, says a report issued by the rich nations' club in November.
In the report, New Zealand's rate per 100,000 was 181, although that was for 2001, and Australia's 155 rate was for 2003.
The figures make grim reading for a country in which cancer is now the leading cause of death, even though Ministry of Health figures show New Zealand's cancer mortality declined by 4 per cent between 2001 and 2004.
For men, the New Zealand death rate was slightly better than the OECD average; for women it was significantly worse.
But the women's rate is lower than for men throughout the West.
New Zealand's death rates were worse than Australia's and the OECD average for breast and prostate cancer, although for male lung cancer it was better than average.
Cancer specialists cite more-restricted access to modern treatments like Herceptin and implanted radiotherapy than in Australia and other countries as a reason for New Zealand's worse mortality rates.
But some statistical bright spots can be found, such as the relative survival rates for cervical cancer patients. This was better than in the 1990s, slightly better than Australia's rate and significantly better than the OECD average.
But New Zealand's five-year relative survival rate in breast cancer remained worse than in Australia, although it matched the average.
A 2002 comparison by epidemiologist Professor David Skegg showed 831 fewer people would have died of cancer in New Zealand if its cancer death rate had matched Australia's.
The two countries had a similar incidence of breast cancer, yet New Zealand's death rate from the disease was 28 per cent higher, the study said.
The reason was probably not Australia's earlier introduction of breast screening, but might be that New Zealand was behind in the use of radiotherapy, chemotherapy and endocrine therapy.
The cancer-control gap with Australia was likely to widen because repeated calls for a national cancer control initiative like Australia's went unheeded in the 1990s.
Such a scheme has since begun in New Zealand, and the ministry's principal cancer control adviser, Dr John Childs, said it was hoped this would help reduce the cancer death rate.
