One of the biggest questions on any cancer patient’s mind is “what are the chances I’m going to beat this thing? How have others done?” Well, let me be the first to say that you need to take any statistics you see with a grain of salt and analyze them with a critical mind. And even though statistics should only be used as a guide, and everyone is an individual, and only your doctor can give you the best advice about your prognosis, fuck it, let’s look at some numbers anyway, shall we?
These numbers come from the American Cancer Society and are based on a study of the National Cancer Institute’s SEER database looking at nearly 120,000 people from 1991 to 2000 and don’t reflect the advances, of which there have been many, since then. The percentage is five-year-out survival rates. Or, in plain English, how many (what percent) are left standing after five years.
| Stage I | 93% |
| Stage IIA | 85% |
| Stage IIB | 72% |
| Stage IIIA | 83% |
| Stage IIIB | 64% |
| Stage IIIC | 44% |
| Stage IV | 8% |
So you can see that you really don’t want stage IV if you can help it. My IIIC is better but not looking too good. Again, these are old numbers and they also include a broad spectrum demographic. I have a lot of advantages many of these people didn’t.
A great tool for more recent (and extremely specific) data is Sloan-Kettering’s colorectal nomogram. With this interactive tool, you can plug in your specifics and out will come your five and ten-year outlooks based on what SK has seen in their patients; about 1,300 of them. But again, the nature of this data means it’s old - five to ten years old. My numbers if I have my parameters correct are 65% for five and 55% for ten years out. Much better than the chart above. But then I was able to get very specific about my case which I believe falls above the usual median stats. Why do they call it a nomogram? Because it’s fun to confuse people with language so you can seem smarter than them. In this case, I think they got the name wrong.
The National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) is a database that collects information on cancer incidence and survival in the United States. Current data ranges from 1973 - 2005. And guess what? You can make your own charts and tables based on the parameters you want. If you don’t know what to do this Friday night, grab a beer and have at it.
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