Background: Survival studies in intestinal cancers have generally shown favorable development, but few studies have been able to pinpoint the timing of the changes in survival over an extended period. Here, we compared the relative survival rates for colon, rectal and small intestinal cancers from Denmark (DK), Finland (FI), Norway (NO) and Sweden (SE). Design: Relative 1-, 5- and 5/1-year conditional survival data were obtained from the NORDCAN database for the years 1971-2020. Results: The 50-year survival patterns were country-specific. For colon and rectal cancers, the slopes of survival curves bended upwards for DK, were almost linear for NO and bended downwards for FI and SE; 5-year survival was the highest in DK. Survival in small intestinal cancer was initially below colon and rectal cancers but in FI and NO it caught up toward the end of the follow-up. Conclusions: Relative survival in intestinal cancers has developed well in the Nordic countries, and DK is an example of a country which in 20 years was able to achieve excellent survival rates in colon and rectal cancers. In the other countries, the increase in survival curves for colon and rectal cancer has slowed down, which may be a challenge posed by metastatic cancers.

Biomedical Center Faculty of Medicine Charles University Pilsen 30605 Pilsen Czech Republic

Cancer Gene Therapy Group Translational Immunology Research Program University of Helsinki 00290 Helsinki Finland

Comprehensive Cancer Center Helsinki University Hospital 00290 Helsinki Finland

Department of Surgery School of Medicine in Pilsen University Hospital 30605 Pilsen Czech Republic

Division of Cancer Epidemiology German Cancer Research Center Im Neuenheimer Feld 580 69120 Heidelberg Germany

Division of Pediatric Neurooncology German Cancer Research Center 69210 Heidelberg Germany

Hopp Children's Cancer Center 69120 Heidelberg Germany

Institute of Pathological Physiology Faculty of Medicine in Pilsen Charles University 32300 Pilsen Czech Republic

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