From your population based study, what are the major survival trends in Sweden?

FAQ published on October 28, 2014
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Magnus Björkholm, PhD, MD
Professor of Medicine
Head Unit of Internal Medicine
Karolinska University Hospital
Stockholm, Sweden
From your population based study, what are the major survival trends in Sweden?
I am Magnus Björkholm from Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden, and I have been asked the question from your population-based study, “What are the major survival trends in Sweden?” And based upon almost 7,000 patients diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma from 1973 to 2009, we have been looking at relative survival in this large patient cohort, and what we can see is that survival has improved over the calendar period quite substantially in patients up to 65 years of age. However, older patients are still doing rather poorly, most pronounced in the age group 80 years or more, and it should be noted that even though the proportion of older patients that is about 65 years of age is slowly decreasing in Sweden, we still see 17% to 18% of our patients are above 65 years of age at diagnosis. So, relative survival reaches a plateau in patients up to 65 years of age illustrating that the excess death from other courses than Hodgkin lymphoma tumor is really decreasing in the last calender period, that is patients diagnosed from 2001 to 2009. So, we are improving, but there remains a lot to be done.
Last modified: October 27, 2014
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