Breast cancer survival is significantly improving in the UK following scares over the safety of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), a major international study has found.

The analysis reveals Britain’s survival rate has gone from the worst among Europe’s biggest countries to second best in the last five years.

Improved screening for middle-aged women is partly the reason, however the authors also credit a reduction in take-up of HRT by menopausal women.

The treatment is used to ease uncomfortable symptoms of the menopause such as hot flushes, migraines, disrupted sleep, mood changes and depression by topping up low levels of hormones produced by the body.

A link between the treatment and a heightened risk of breast cancer was first suggested in 2002, but later widely dispute.

However, more recent studies have indicated that the risk was originally underestimated and that HRT triples a woman’s breast cancer risk.

The new study by the University of Milan showed that while the rate of deaths from breast cancer for the EU as a whole is predicted to decreased 11.8 per cent between 2014 and 2019, the improvement in the UK is 17.7 per cent.

That puts Britain behind only Spain among the big Western European countries, and ahead of France, Germany and Italy.