50% Cancer Patients Surviving 10 Years

Good News!. – Half of all cancer patients will now live for at least a decade after being diagnosed, a study has revealed.

The chances have increased dramatically since 1970s.

More than 70% now live for 10 years or more after learning they have cancers such as breast, prostrate and testicular.

But the study showed there has been little or no improvement in long-term survival rates for lung, brain, stomach, oesophagus and pancreatic cancer.

Co-author of the research Manuela Quaresma, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: “Although survival for some cancers has improved dramatically over the last 40 years, others are lagging far behind.

“More investment is urgently needed to improve early diagnosis and provide the best treatment, including more specialist surgeons, for poor prognosis cancers.”

Dr Penny Woods, chief executive of the British Lung Foundation, said: “It is encouraging to see there has been an increase in survival rates for most cancers in the last 40 years, however, it is deeply distressing that survival rates for lung cancer – the biggest cancer killer in the UK – continues to lag so far behind most other forms of the disease.

Today’s figures from the Cancer Research UK Cancer Survival Group show that the 10-year survival rate for breast cancer has jumped from 40% in the early 1970s to 78% now.

It has gone from 46% to 90% for those with melanoma.

But the figures, published on Tuesday in The Lancet, show that decade-long survival is only 5% for people with lung cancer and 14% for brain tumour patients.

The study looked at more than seven million people diagnosed with one of the 21 common cancers in England and Wales between 1971 and 2011.

“Good news and not so good news then!”