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http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/cancer-advances-in-focus/cancer http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/cancer-advances... 5-year survival ra

• danieltillett 12y ago
  Most of this increase is due to earlier diagnosis. I really hate 5 year survival rates as a measure of success as it is almost totally meaningless. We know most cancers have lead times from initial mutation to symptomatic diagnose of 15 to 30 years. This means that if I was able to make a test that could detected cancer 10 years after initiation I could in one swoop make the 5 year survival rate 100% for all cancers without changing age at death by one day.
  • ximeng 12y ago
    Some good news in there though: "Treatment for this disease has become so effective that 80% of patients with metastatic testicular cancer can now be cured. Thirty-five years ago, 95% of these patients died, usually within 1 year of diagnosis." From idlewords' post it might sound like we've made no improvement, but instead it is more like slow and patchy improvement.
    • idlewords 12y ago
      Yeah for some specific cancers the progress has been incredible. But the dream that 'cancer' is one thing that can be cured has gone away. The point I wanted to stress was that our progress has been much more modest than many people imagine, given the amount of talk about revolutionary treatment and the power of modern medicine.