Survival rates are often used by doctors as a standard way of discussing a person's prognosis (outlook). Some patients with cancer may want to know the survival statistics for people in similar situations, while others may not find the numbers helpful, or may even not want to know them. It’s up to you if you want to read about the survival statistics below for breast cancer.
The 5-year survival rate refers to the percentage of patients who live at least 5 years after being diagnosed with cancer. Many of these patients live much longer than 5 years after diagnosis. Also, people diagnosed with cancer can die from other things, and these numbers do not take into account the fact that some of the deaths are from causes other than breast cancer.
In order to get 5-year survival rates, doctors have to look at people who were treated at least 5 years ago. Improvements in treatment since then may result in a more favorable outlook for people now being diagnosed with (cancer).
Survival rates are often based on previous outcomes of large numbers of people who had the disease, but they cannot predict what will happen in any particular person's case. Many other factors may affect a person's outlook, such as the the grade of the cancer and the presence of hormone receptors on the cancer cells. Your doctor can tell you how the numbers below may apply to you, as he or she is familiar with the aspects of your particular situation.
The available statistics do not divide survival rates by all of the substages, such as IA and IB. The rates for these substages are likely to be close to the rate for the overall stage. For example, the survival rate for stage IA is likely to be slightly higher than that listed for stage I, while the survival rate for stage IB would be expected to be slightly lower.
The numbers below come from the National Cancer Data Base, and are based on people who were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001 and 2002.
|
Stage |
5-year |
|
0 |
93% |
|
I |
88% |
|
IIA |
81% |
|
IIB |
74% |
|
IIIA |
67% |
|
IIIB |
41%* |
|
IIIC |
49%* |
|
IV |
15% |
*These numbers are correct as written (stage IIIB shows worse survival than stage IIIC).
