5-Year Survival Rates for Patients With Cancer Worldwide

Using a global surveillance program that documents cancer survival trends, researchers determined the 5-year survival rates of patients diagnosed with 18 types of cancer worldwide.

In 2015, the CONCORD-2 program established global surveillance of cancer survival, with publication of trends in survival from 1995 to 2009 among patients diagnosed with cancer in 67 countries. CONCORD-3 extended the surveillance of cancer trends to include patients diagnosed up until 2014.

CONCORD-3 includes the records of 37.5 million patients diagnosed with cancer from 2000 to 2014. The data were provided by 322 population-based cancer registries in 71 countries and territories, with data on their vital status at least 5 years following diagnosis or at December 31, 2014. For 47 countries, data were provided with 100% coverage of the national population.

The study, published in The Lancet, looked at 18 cancers or groups of cancers: esophagus, stomach, colon, rectum, liver, pancreas, lung, breast, cervix, ovary, prostate, melanoma of the skin in adults, brain tumors, leukemias, and lymphomas in both adults and children.

The authors found that for most cancers, the 5-year net survival was the highest in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. Results showed that survival trends are generally increasing, even for some of the most lethal cancers; some countries showed a 5% increase in survival for liver, pancreatic, and lung cancers.

For women diagnosed from 2010 to 2014, 5-year survival for breast cancer is now 90.2% in the United States and 89.5% in Australia; however, there are large differences internationally, with a 66.1% survival rate in India.

For gastrointestinal cancers, the highest levels of 5-year survival were seen in southeast Asia. In South Korea, there was a 68.9% 5-year survival rate for stomach cancer, 71.8% for colon cancer, and 71.1% for rectum cancer. In Japan, there was a 36% 5-year survival rate for esophageal cancer, and in Taiwan there was a 27.9% 5-year survival rate for liver cancer.

However, the same region had comparatively lower 5-year survival rates for melanoma of the skin (59.9% in South Korea, 52.1% in Taiwan, and 49.6% in China), lymphoid malignancies (52.5%, 50.5%, and 38.3%, respectively), and myeloid malignancies (45.9%, 33.4%, and 24.8%).

“It is crucial for national and regional governments to recognize that population-based cancer registries are key policy tools, both to monitor the impact of cancer prevention strategies and to evaluate the effectiveness of the health system for all patients diagnosed with cancer,” concluded the authors.