COPENHAGEN -- Cancer survival rates throughout Europe are improving but the gap between eastern and western nations is widening.

Forty percent of men and 47 percent of women in Europe are alive five years after developing all types of cancer, according to a major study released on Thursday.

But people living in Austria, France and Switzerland have the highest odds of beating the disease and those in Slovakia, Estonia and Poland the lowest, Reuters reported.

"Cancer survival is increasing across Europe but the differences in survival between east and western European countries are increasing," said Professor Michel Coleman, an author of the report.

The epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in London told a cancer meeting that overall survival was below the European average for both sexes in eastern nations and in Denmark, England, Scotland and Wales. Five-year survival rates in the United States are 62 percent for men and 63.5 percent for women, according to the National Cancer Institute.

Patients in Europe with lip cancer have the highest survival rate at 94 percent but only four percent of patients with pancreatic cancer are alive five years later.

The EUROCARE-3 study, the largest international cancer survival study, is funded by the European Union. It compared survival rates in 22 countries from 42 types of cancer for 1.8 million adults and 24,000 children diagnosed with the disease between 1990-1994 and followed up until 1999.

Luxembourg, Greece, Belgium and Ireland were not included because the data was not available.

"We have the average survival for the whole population as a public health surveillance measure, not survival rates that come from (medical) trials," said Coleman.

Differences in the stage, or severity, of the tumor at the time of diagnosis, access to treatments and investment in healthcare account for the gulf between eastern and western Europe.

In Germany, which is at the top end of the chart, 10.6 percent of gross domestic product is devoted to healthcare, compared to six percent in Poland.

Poland spends $420 per capita on healthcare, a fraction of the $2,555 dispensed in Switzerland.

"The wide differences in survival trends are likely to reflect differences in both stage-at-diagnosis and availability of and access to health resources, both of which are amenable to intervention," said Coleman.

He added that they represent a benchmark for reduction in inequalities in cancer survival across Europe in the future.

Sufferers of lip, testicular and thyroid cancers, as well as melanoma and Hodgkin's disease have an average five-year survival rate of 80 percent. But that dropped to 60-79 percent for breast, prostate, bladder, cervical and uterine cancers.

Cancer of the lung, pancreas, brain, liver and esophagus had the worst prognosis.