In what is being called a major milestone in American cancer research and treatment, 5-year survival rates averaged across all cancers have never been higher, with 7-in-10 cancer patients living past 5 years post-diagnosis.
This average was pumped up by large survival rate increases in leukemia (20%), non-Hodgkin lymphoma (18%), and ovarian cancer (9%) over the last 20 years.
The 5-year survival average also stands at 92% for breast cancer in women, 95% for melanoma of the skin, and 98% for prostate cancer.
These numbers were chronicled in the 75th annual Cancer Statistics report by American Cancer Society (ACS). It shows how 5-year survival rates have increased on average 20% since 50 years ago.
The Cleveland Clinic states that most cancer recurrences happen within the first 5 years after diagnosis, so surviving this period is a strong indicator that the cancer is under control, and that while not “cured,” has a very low chance of coming back.
The 20% increase in patients living to the 5-year mark reflects advancements in early diagnosis through routine screening procedures, and advances in treatment like the introduction of immune checkpoint therapy, CAR T-cell therapy, and drugs like tyrosine kinase inhibitors which have greatly increased the survival rate of leukemia patients.
Even pancreatic cancer, long considered as sure as a court death sentence, has peaked over the last 20 years into a double-digit survival rate for the first time ever (13%). Another grim category, liver cancer, has risen from a 7% relative survival rate in the 1990s to 22% in 2023.
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Survival rates for myeloma have doubled to 62%, and almost as much for lung cancer (15% – 28%).
Further still, later-state diagnoses are not as hopeless as they once were. According to the ACS, patients whose cancers had spread to “distant” organs averaged a 17% rate of 5-year survival in the mid-1990s, but now average 35% in the 2020s.
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“The cancer death rate has declined by 34% since its peak in 1991, averting about 4.8 million cancer deaths as of 2023,” the statistics report suggested.
Quite the report card.
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