Survival rates for breast cancer have been improving for thirty years and more women are being successfully treated than ever before. In general, when talking about survival rates for cancer, a 5 year relative survival is most commonly reported. This is because a 1 year survival gives only a very short term view of prognosis whilst for 10 years survival and beyond you have to look at people diagnosed a long time ago. A common misconception is to treat survival rates as ‘cure’ rates. There are a few types of cancer for which the 5 year survival rate effectively represents a ‘cure’ rate, although for the vast majority of cancer survival rates continue to fall beyond 5 years after diagnosis, most notably for women with breast cancer, among whom survival rates continue to decline more than twenty years after diagnosis.
Prognosis and survival rates for breast cancer can depend on a great many things. Type of cancer, treatments, lifestyle, and genetics all play a very important role in being a cancer survivor. The current 5 year survival rates for breast cancer are 86% while the current 10 year survival rate is 76%. These rates include women at all stages or levels of severity of breast cancer. Women with breast cancer that has not metastasized – that is, the cancer have not moved to the lymph system or other parts of the body – have a 5 year survival rate of 96%. Women whose breast cancer has metastasized to other parts of the body have a 5 year survival rate of 21%.
Most breast cancer recurrences occur in the first 3 to 5 years after diagnosis. After 10 years the risk of recurrence is very small, although it occasionally happens as late as 30 to 40 years after treatment. If the cancer recurs or has spread to other organs, the 5 year survival rate falls to about 18%. In this case treatment is centered less on a cure, and more on providing quality of life for as long as possible. Fortunately, the trend of increasing breast cancer survival rates in several countries has been improved. Through disease awareness, continuous availability of screening tests and modern therapeutic strategies to combating breast cancer also further growth and developments of reporting, and therapeutic treatments will surely be helpful in the fight against breast cancer. Women now have a better chance to increase their survival rates for breast cancer.
Survival Rates for Breast Cancer Stage 2
