According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, two of three people, with invasive cancer will survive five years or more.
Invasive cancer is when the cancer spreads to nearby healthy tissue.
Early detection and innovation in cancer treatment has increased the number of cancer survivors over the last several years. Even patients with invasive cancer have encouraging survival rates.
In order to discern this information, the CDC looked at the number of cancer cases reported to U.S. cancer registries in 2011. 2011 is the year of the most recently available data. That year saw 1,532,066 invasive cancer cases or 451 cases per 100,000 people.
The most common cancer sites reported were prostate, breast, lung and colon and rectum.
The five-year survival rates were about 97% for prostate cancer, 88% for breast cancer, 63% for colorectal cancer, and 18% for lung cancer.
Between men and women the rates were relatively even, however racial disparities existed. 65% if white people had a five-year relative survival rates and 60% of black people had the same.
Researchers hope that public health expert use this data in order to determine what groups of people have higher rates of cancer and lower rates of survival. These specific groups may benefit the most from cancer control efforts.
Additionally, the hope is that this research can help in the development of comprehensive cancer control programs which would include supporting the needs of cancer survivors, reduce cancer incidence and improve survival.
