Five Year Survival / How can I tell if I'm going to live or die from my cancer?

At first glance this seems like a harsh question but it is really very important to get a handle on this issue.

Of course, no one can predict with total certainty your exact outcome. Instead, cancer mortality rates or survival rates are based on the outcomes of large numbers of people who have had the same disease. In other words, the cancer survival rates that will be quoted to you are only probabilities.

The second thing to know is that not all cancers have the same outcomes. In other words -- some cancers are deadlier than others.

And the third thing to realize is that the probability of being cured depends very much on the stage of your cancer.

For example, in all cancers, patients with stage 1 disease have better survival rates than patients with stage 2 disease.  And cancer patients with stage 2 disease have better survival rates than patients with stage 3 disease. And stage 3 patients have better survival rates than stage 4 patients.

That's why it's so critical for you to know what stage of the disease you have.

What is 5 year survival?

When doctors quote the probability of survival, they don't tell you that you're supposed to live 3 years and 3 months. Instead, they quote you a figure that’s called the 5 year survival. This number represents the probability that someone with your disease will be alive at the end of 5 years.

For example, if the 5 year survival is 25%, this means that the odds of being alive after 5 years are 25%. It’s important to look at the particular group of patient for whom the 5 year survival is being quoted. For example, it could include all patients with a certain type of cancer or it could only include patients with a certain stage of that cancer.