5 Year Survival

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/conten t/CRI_2_4_3X_How_is_Anal_Cancer_staged_4 7.asp

If you live cancer free for 5 years then

are your odds much higher for survival?

Why do you keep posting a link about anal cancer whatever the content of your question?

With some types of cancer, if the cancer hasn't returned within 5 years, it's not going to. Cervical cancer is an example.

With some other types of cancer this is not the case and cancer can return at any time, even years after diagnosis and treatment. Breast cancer is an example.

However, with breast cancer recurrences are most likely to happen within the first two years, and after 5 years the risk is considerably reduced and continues to decline with each passing year.

2009-06-16 09:22:15 by Tom

Our micro-preemie was given little chance of survival when she arrived 17 weeks early......During her almost 5 months in the NICU she battled ...

Does it start when the cancer is discovered? When they think the cancer started growing? If it has metastasized from somewhere else, does the clock start over again? My husband learned he had kidney cancer in 2007. He had a complete nephrectomy in October. The doctor told him that the tumor had probably been growing for two years before we found it. Last September the kidney cancer spread to the plural lining in his lungs. Now it has spread to his lymph nodes. If he has a 5 year expected survival rate, when did the clock start?

I'd like to see what Denisedds has to say about this if she sees this question. She is a tumor registrar - statistics expert. Stage IV renal carcinoma - what percentage five year survival rate did your medical oncologist tell you?

No experienced oncology doctor would say a person has five years to live. We never know that so far in advance. We usually quote percentage five year survivals for people in similar situations with various types and stages of cancers.

The "clock" as you put it starts when the biopsy diagnosis is made and the malignant disease is initially staged. The statistics do change when metastatic disease is later identified. You now know that the renal cancer cells had already spread to the pleura and the lymph nodes before the nephrectomy in 2007. The cancer cells were microscopic in the pleura and lymph nodes in 10/07 - too small to detect with any scans.

BUT - Statistics never tell us what one special individual will do. Statistics are averages from the experiences of a large number of people who are not really alike even though they have the same general diagnosis. No two people I saw with renal carcinomas were exactly the same. No two women with breast cancers are ever the same.

People may become too caught up in numbers or statistics from other people. No one can precisely predict the future of one person with statistics based on a large group of other people.

The urologist who did the initial surgery in October 2007 could not have known how long that primary tumor had been growing. He or she was just making a guess. Our thinking is that most tumors go through ~70% of their cellular divisions or growth by the time they reach 1 cm in diameter - about the size of a marble. Most of the growth of a malignant tumor - either a primary or a metastatic lesion - occurs before we can see the tumor mass with any scans.

Maybe your doctor meant that it may have been visible for two years before it was finally detected. That is the problem with kidney cancers (and pancreatic and lung and ovarian cancers). There often are no signs or symptoms until they are already advanced.

2010-01-04 17:38:37 by sonia

An answer like 10-60% is too vague and unacceptible? Please include the year, if possible.

"Historically, inflammatory breast cancer was treated by surgery and was associated with a 100 percent mortality rate. However, significant progress has been made in recent years using a combination of treatments, including chemotherapy, surgery and radiation therapy. The combined-treatment approach has vastly improved the prognosis for a woman with inflammatory breast cancer. What was once universally fatal is now a disease that results in half of women diagnosed being alive in five years and one-third of women diagnosed surviving 10 or more years." (Feb 2006)

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/inflamm atory-breast-cancer/DS00632/DSECTION=6
"Past statistics have shown the average survival rate of inflammatory breast cancer to be approximately 18 months. However, recent studies have shown that advancements in treatment may help to extend the survival time for women with inflammatory breast cancer. Using chemotherapy, surgery (mastectomy), and radiation, the average five-year survival rate is currently 40%." (July 2006)

http://imaginis.com/breasthealth/inflamm atory2.asp