Significant increase in cancer survival rate

A “tipping point” has been reached in the war against cancer, with half of newly diagnosed patients surviving at least 10 years, a landmark study has shown.

Many, though not all, of these patients will be no more at risk of dying than members of the general population.

Cancer survival has changed so dramatically since the 1970s that it is time to adopt a whole new way of looking at the disease, say experts.

Forty years ago, just a quarter of patients lived as long as 10 years after their diagnosis, and people lived in dread of the “Big C”.

Harpal Kumar, CEO of Cancer Research UK, which announced the new findings, said: “It’s not very long ago that cancer used to be thought of as a death sentence.

“The reason this 50% figure is an important tipping point is it’s saying that, actually, now half of all patients will survive at least 10 years after a diagnosis and for many it will be very much longer than that. I think that does represent a change in the way we should be thinking about cancer.”

Currently, five-year survival is one of the main yardsticks used by clinicians and scientists when assessing cancer outcomes.

Five-year survival is often the “end point” cited in trials of new treatments.

Now a more optimistic approach might be justified, said Dr Kumar.

“Up to now, the predominant metric used to look at survival of cancer has been the number of patients or proportion of patients who survive five years or more after diagnosis,” he said.

“With the progress that’s been made over the last few decades, we think it’s time now to shift the narrative and to change the language we use and start thinking about 10-year survival from cancer.”

The research — which involved analysing data on more than 7m patients diagnosed with cancer since 1971 — showed spectacular improvements in survival for some cancers.

Rates of 10-year survival for testicular cancer jumped from 69% to 98%, and for malignant skin cancer from 46% to 89%.

Women with breast cancer now had a 78% chance of surviving at least a decade, compared with 40% in 1971. Similarly, the proportion of men living 10 years with prostate cancer had jumped from 25% to around 80%.

However, it was not all good news. The outlook remained bleak for patients with the deadliest forms of cancer, such as those affecting the lung, oesophagus, pancreas, and brain.

Fewer than 5% of people diagnosed with lung and pancreatic cancer could expect to live 10 years, and for oesophageal and brain cancers decade-long survival was no more than 15%.