Cancer prognosis improves with time: Statistics Canada

Prognosis of the Canada cancer survivors tend to improve, sometimes significantly, after they survive a year or more, suggests a new report from Statistics Canada.

For the first time, Statistics Canada found survival rates for people who have lived at least a year with cancer. The risk of death is often greater in the first year, the Agency said, and old prognosis of estimates for the following years can no longer apply.

"The good news in this story is, for many, many patients, once they are gone two or three or four years after the diagnosis of cancer, their survival to the general population is really significantly better that it was at the time"", that they first had this cat with their oncologist," says Dr. Heather Bryant, co-author of the report and Vice-President, cancer control for the Canadian Partnership against Cancer.

The researchers analyzed data on patients across the country and 26 different types of cancer diagnosed between 2004 and 2006, looking at the rate of survival at different times after the diagnosis. The estimates are based on the average survival time for large groups of patients, rather than the individual prognosis.

The implications of cancer control are different for each disease, according to the rate of survival at diagnosis and after several years, said Heather Bryant. David MacIntosh CBC.

Researchers collected data conditional survival, which means that they compared patients with cancer survival rates in different periods after diagnosis with survival of persons in the general population who do not have cancer.

"Conditional survival data provide more accurate prognostic information how the risk of death changes over time," said the authors of the report.

"These results could help people who have survived with one or more years after a diagnosis of cancer by adjusting their vision of the future and help in planning follow-up cancer care providers.".

Survival at 5 years for people with cancer of the pancreas is six per cent of diagnosis, but it is 28 per cent among survivors of one year and 88 per cent among survivors of five years.

Similarly, among the survivors of cancer esophageal for at least five years, the estimated survival rate is 83 per cent, although the initial prognosis is 13%.

For the five surviving cancer of the colon, cancer with survival at 5 years estimated initial 63 per cent, the prognosis of update is 97 per cent, the authors say.

The rate of five-year survivor of breast cancer rises to 93% 88% at diagnosis, according to a new study. Eric Gaillard/Reuters.

The findings have implications for the fight against cancer, said Bryant.

For cancer such as colorectal cancer, where the initial prognosis is poor, health care providers would concentrate improve early detection to improve the chances of survival.

But with cancer, such as breast cancer, where 5-year survival rate is high enough, the focus should be to help patients beyond these first five years.

"If the patient lives five years, which is his chance to live five others still 10 years or more, because that is where the differences will be made,"said Bryant."

A surprise in the study, she said, was that there was no improvement in chronic apparent prospects for survival during the first five years after the diagnosis of Lymphocytic Leukemia, or CLL, with a ratio of about five years of relative survival remaining to little less than 80 per cent.

In the case of CLL, the findings suggest doctors and researchers should not focus all their attention on 5-year survival rates, since they are relatively stable, but look for ways to prevent future recurrence of the disease.

The national study gave researchers the opportunity to examine smaller, rarer cancers and tease the few differences that correspond with clinical understanding of these diseases, said Bryant.

Prithwish of the Canadian Cancer Society epidemiologist, said treatment could explain part of the results in terms of improvement in survival time, but added more research must be done to find out what treatment role plays effectively against other factors affecting survival.

Chart of survival of cancer. Statistics Canada

The group is working on the construction of information of cancer survival of specific stages for four major cancers - breast, colorectal, lung and prostate - since the chances of survival for five years differs depending on the stage when it is diagnosed.

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