Europe cancer league unveiled

However, their respectable ranking may be due more to differences in record-keeping rather than the disease itself.

The "Europreval" study involved cancer registries in 17 countries, which record how many people are diagnosed with various types of the illness.

Cancer Prevalence: Europe (per 100,000 people)
Poland - 1168
Estonia - 1339
Spain - 1862
Netherlands - 1867
England - 2011
Scotland - 2097
France - 2356
Denmark - 2388
Italy - 2597
Sweden - 3046

Researchers focused on prevalence - how many people are living with cancer at any particular time.

"Top of the table", according to the registries, was Poland, with just 1,170 cases per 100,000 population.

Propping it up was Sweden, with 3,050 per 100,000.

The average was approximately 2,240, with Scotland and England weighing in just under this, at 2100 and 2010 respectively.

However, some experts query whether the figures give a true reflection of the health of a particular country.

The figures, they say, are more likely to show the relative sophistication of cancer registries in the country involved.

In addition, the fact that poorer countries do not detect cancers as early means that survival rates are poorer - lowering the number of surviving patients.

Separate figures for survival rates paint a different picture - in Poland, records show only just over a quarter of patients surviving past the five-year mark.

In contrast, the Swedes top this table - just under half of their patients pass this milestone.

In Scotland, the figure is 34%, in England 37%.

More women

Professor Graham Giles, an Australian researcher, said that prevalence records were not necessarily the best way to assess the threat from cancer in different countries

He said: "Prevalence estimates are susceptible to the forces that drive the incidence of, and survival from, specific cancer types, particularly with respect to those cancers that are not uniformly and rapidly fatal."

Incidence of cancer - the number of new cases - appears to be on the increase in many more developed countries, but this may be linked partly to an increase in the detection of cancers which might otherwise lie dormant - such as some prostate cancers.

Of the prevalent cases, more than half were in women, with breast cancer accounting for most of these.

The most prevalent cancer in men was colorectal cancer, and more than half of all those with cancer was over the age of 65.

The report was published in the journal Annals of Oncology.