A LEADING cancer specialist has criticised the medical profession's lack of knowledge about the killer disease after two North-East families were left reeling from alleged blunders.

Professor Hilary Calvert, part of an internationally-known cancer research centre in Newcastle, said not enough effort or funding was being put into cancer issues.

"As a nation, we are not putting sufficient effort into tackling cancer and training all doctors about recognising cancer, how you handle it and early diagnosis," said Prof Calvert.

His comments follow a shocking case in which the family of a suspected cancer patient at Darlington Memorial Hospital were initially told the man was dying. They were then told he did not have cancer and was likely to make a full recovery - and then told he may have the disease after all.

In another case at the same hospital, doctors removed part of a patient's colon during a routine operation only to find it was not cancerous.

Mike Stone, director of the national Patients Association, said the cases showed how much progress the NHS needed to make before it offered a high quality cancer service to everyone.

Six months ago, Health Secretary Alan Milburn announced the appointment of a Cancer Tsar - Professor Mike Richards - the investment of an extra £80m into cancer services and a target for 2001 requiring suspected cancer patients to be seen by a specialist within two weeks.

Prof Calvert, head of the department of oncology at Newcastle University, said he welcomed last year's extra investment.

However, it was not enough to guarantee a two-week maximum wait to see a specialist if the next stage of the process - sending the patient for a scan - took six weeks.

"The whole patient's journey has got to be resourced," said Prof Calvert, who is involved in trialing new cancer drugs in the region.

The professor said that in 99 per cent of suspected cancer cases, the way to confirm a diagnosis was to remove tissue and have it examined by pathologists in a laboratory.

"For the most part, it is not that hard to diagnose cancer, provided you follow the rules and get a biopsy. There are a few cases where people may be wary of doing this, for instance, cancer of the liver, because it could be dangerous," he said.

In general, the UK did not put enough effort into training all doctors about diagnosing cancer, he said.

"Unfortunately, it is quite common to see people who clearly have symptoms of cancer who have been assured they are cancer-free two or three times before."

Professor Gordon McVie, director-general of the Cancer Research Campaign, has called on the Government to more than double the number of cancer specialists in the UK and spend an extra £170m on drugs.

While improvements in survival rates have been made in recent years, patients from less affluent parts of the UK, such as the North-East, tend to do less well than their better-off compatriots.

But a health spokesman for the Northern and Yorkshire region said significant progress had been made in recent years and death rates for under 75s fell from 11,022 in 1995 to 9,991 in 1997