Stomach Cancer Survival Rates and Prognosis
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What are survival rates?
A common term you will hear throughout your stomach (gastric) cancer journey is ‘prognosis’, which refers to the probable outcome or course of a particular disease. To make a prognosis, doctors will use different types of statistics collected over the years from people with the same disease.
One of these statistics is called the relative survival rate. It tells you the percentage of people with the same type and stage of cancer who are still alive at a certain period of time (typically five years) after they were first diagnosed. This is in comparison to people in the overall population. The relative survival rate is used to predict how having a specific type and stage of cancer affects your life expectancy.
For instance, let’s say the five-year survival rate for a particular stage of gastric cancer is 50%. This means that compared to those without cancer, people with that stage of gastric cancer have a 50% chance of living at least five years after their initial diagnosis. Understanding your prognosis will be helpful in making informed decisions about your health and well-being.
What are the survival rates for gastric cancer in the United States?
The five-year relative survival rates for gastric cancer are monitored by the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database maintained by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). This database provides survival statistics for different types of cancer in the United States.
The SEER database determines gastric cancer survival rates based on how far the cancer has spread. Instead of grouping cancers according to the AJCC TNM stage, the SEER database categorizes gastric cancers into three stages: localized, regional and distant. These stages are determined at the time of initial diagnosis.
Based on people diagnosed with gastric cancers from 2013 to 2019, the overall five-year survival rate in all three stages combined is 36%. The five-year relative survival rate for each stage is:
- 75% if the cancer has not spread outside the stomach (localized).
- 35% if the cancer has spread outside the stomach to nearby structures and/or regional lymph nodes (regional)
- 7% if the cancer has spread (metastasized) to distant parts of the body like the liver.
What do these numbers mean for me?
These survival statistics are only estimates that describe trends in large groups of people previously diagnosed with gastric cancer. They cannot be used to predict what will happen to you accurately, as each individual case is unique and different. These estimates also don’t consider factors that can affect your prognosis, such as your age, overall health and response to treatment.
On top of that, relative survival rate statistics are usually measured every five years. This means that current estimates may not reflect the benefits of newer advancements in cancer treatment and diagnosis.
Your cancer care team has all the information you need to know about your condition. They are the best resource for answering any questions you may have about your prognosis. Do not hesitate to reach out to them for guidance and support.
