I will survive

When told they have cancer, many people ask their doctor what their chance of survival is. While there are many factors that go into an answer, there are statistics that may help. Statistics are numbers that describe what happens to large groups of people with the same diagnosis. Statistics cannot be applied to a specific person but may give some idea of what to expect.

Here are some statistics that are used for cancer:

• Survival rate: the percentage of people who are alive at a certain time after diagnosis.

• Overall survival rate: the percentage of people with a certain type and stage of cancer who have not died from any cause during a period of time after diagnosis.

• Cancer (or disease)-specific survival rate: the percentage of people with a certain type and stage of cancer who have not died from their cancer during a set period of time after diagnosis.

• 5-year relative survival rate: the percentage of people who will be alive 5 years after diagnosis. It does not include those who die from other diseases.

Survival rates can describe any length of time. However, researchers usually look at 5-year relative survival rates. 

Credit: cancer.org

Factors That Can Affect Your Prognosis (how the disease will go for you).

Some of the factors that affect prognosis include:

• the type of cancer and where it is in your body

• the stage of the cancer, which refers to the size of the cancer and if it has spread to other parts of your body

• the cancer’s grade, which refers to how abnormal the cancer cells look under a microscope and provides clues 

        about how quickly the cancer is likely to grow and spread

• certain traits of the cancer cells, such as certain genetic changes or hormone receptor status

• your age and how healthy you were before cancer

• how you respond to treatment

How Many People Survive 5 Years Or More after Being Diagnosed with Cancer of Any Site?

Relative survival is an estimate of the percentage of patients who would be expected to survive the effects of their cancer. It excludes the risk of dying from other causes. Because survival statistics are based on large groups of people, they cannot be used to predict exactly what will happen to an individual patient. No two patients are entirely alike, and treatment and responses to treatment can vary greatly.

People That Survive 5 Years Or More after Being Diagnosed with Cancer of Any Site.

The Medical News Today website provides a very useful breakdown of survival rates for different types of cancer. It also lists factors that influence survival rates and chemotherapy success rates: