A study of cancer survival figures by cancer charity, Macmillan Cancer Support, has found that people now live nearly six times longer after their cancer diagnosis than was the case 40 years ago – median survival time has increased from one year to six years.
However, the research also shows that progress has been ‘patchy’. For 11 of the 20 cancers studied median survival time is now predicted to be over five years. But for nine cancers, median survival time is three years or less, with little improvement since the 1970s. There have been dramatic improvements in survival for some cancers like breast, colon, and Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma – with years added to median survival times. But there is little, if any, good news for other cancers like lung, brain, or pancreatic cancer, where median survival times are still counted in weeks rather than years. Macmillan’s research found that:
• Six of the cancers studied have predicted median survival times of more than 10 years.
• The biggest improvement has been for colon cancer with a 17-fold increase in median survival time from around seven months to 10 years.
• Breast cancer median survival time has doubled since the 1970s and has been more than 10 years since at least the early 1990s.
• Lung and brain cancer median survival times has barely risen, from 11 to 20 weeks; and from 13 to 28 weeks respectively.
• Pancreatic cancer median survival time has increased by just three weeks (from 9 to 12 weeks).
