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I'm unfamiliar with how the US stats get collected - is that 90% of "everyone who had prostate cancer" survives 5+ years; or is that "everyone who had prostate

I'm unfamiliar with how the US stats get collected - is that 90% of "everyone who had prostate cancer" survives 5+ years; or is that "everyone who had prostate cancer and private medical insurance"? If so then that is rather shocking. Prostate cancer may be something of an outlier given the hesitation people have in discussing it. This is something that has only really recently been attempted to be addressed in the UK. Campaigns fronted by comics like Bill Bailey have tried to make it normal to talk about. The British as a society are still so reserved that I imagine thousands die of preventable cancers and diseases simply out of embarrassment. Edit - I've just had a look at Cancer Research's figures[1], [2] and, using data from 2010/11 - prostate cancer had a UK survival rate of ~84% or so - i.e. nearly the same as the US. [1] http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/survival/common-cancers-compared#heading-Zero http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-s... [2] http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/statistics-by-cancer-type/prostate-cancer/survival http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-s...

chimeracoder 9y ago
> I'm unfamiliar with how the US stats get collected - is that 90% of "everyone who had prostate cancer" survives 5+ years; or is that "everyone who had prostate cancer and private medical insurance"? If so then that is rather shocking. It's looking at people with prostate cancer, regardless of insurance status. > Prostate cancer may be something of an outlier given the hesitation people have in discussing it. It's not limited to prostate cancer; for survival rates, the NHS does pretty terribly on almost every form of cancer compared to the US. I picked prostate cancer because it's something that's very treatable - the upper limit is close to 100% for five-year survival, which makes the UK's outcomes that much more unacceptable. But the story is the same for all other common cancers (let alone rare cancers, which the NHS is not optimized as a system to treat).
dragonwriter 9y ago
> I'm unfamiliar with how the US stats get collected - is that 90% of "everyone who had prostate cancer" survives 5+ years; or is that "everyone who had prostate cancer and private medical insurance"? It's survival rate from point of diagnosis. Obviously, insurance and access will affect whether and when diagnosis occurs, but the effects aren't as simple as just limiting the scope to the insured or not.

chimeracoder 9y ago

> I'm unfamiliar with how the US stats get collected - is that 90% of "everyone who had prostate cancer" survives 5+ years; or is that "everyone who had prostate cancer and private medical insurance"? If so then that is rather shocking. It's looking at people with prostate cancer, regardless of insurance status. > Prostate cancer may be something of an outlier given the hesitation people have in discussing it. It's not limited to prostate cancer; for survival rates, the NHS does pretty terribly on almost every form of cancer compared to the US. I picked prostate cancer because it's something that's very treatable - the upper limit is close to 100% for five-year survival, which makes the UK's outcomes that much more unacceptable. But the story is the same for all other common cancers (let alone rare cancers, which the NHS is not optimized as a system to treat).

dragonwriter 9y ago

> I'm unfamiliar with how the US stats get collected - is that 90% of "everyone who had prostate cancer" survives 5+ years; or is that "everyone who had prostate cancer and private medical insurance"? It's survival rate from point of diagnosis. Obviously, insurance and access will affect whether and when diagnosis occurs, but the effects aren't as simple as just limiting the scope to the insured or not.