Cancer Survival Rates
Cancer survival rates are a surprisingly complex subject, because they vary widely depending on the type of cancer and the stage at which treatment began. Add to that the fact that statistical information is not always open to the public, and that each study uses its own methods for collecting and interpreting data, and you start to realize the problem inherent in collating the cancer survival rates data.
For example, depending on where you look, you could find out that up to sixteen percent of lung cancer patients survive for at least five years… or as little as five percent do. In order to get cancer survival rate numbers we can all agree on, we would have to all first agree to use a specific abstract to use to get those numbers.
Even with an agreement as to how to collect and process cancer survival rates information, the usefulness of the statistics may be questionable. Particularly for insidious cancers such as lung cancer and pancreatic cancer that are difficult to detect early, the survival rate isn’t a measure of how effective our countermeasures are — it’s a measure of how little we as a culture engage in preventative medicine. That doesn’t really help anybody who is already looking up the cancer survival rates statistics; they want to know how to get better, not what they should have done but didn’t.
What people really want when they look up cancer survival rates is information on survival rates brought on by specific treatments. For example, they want to know “how long will I survive if I get acupuncture therapy vs. nutritional therapy for my esophageal cancer?” (Statistics say use acupuncture, but go to China to get it.)
Unfortunately, few people — and even fewer unbiased sources who aren’t vested in the final numbers — actually keep track of things like this. The most common scenario is that a pharmacist who is testing a new treatment will keep careful track of the survival rates for that treatment; again, he is vested in the final outcome because he wants his treatment to work. That kind of thing leads to a bias that can skew the final numbers in a variety of ways.
Conversely, there is no way for any major corporation to profit significantly from unpatentable cures such as acupuncture or nutritive therapy — and as such, there is no profit to be found in tracking their efficacy, either. So finding cancer survival rates for treatments such as those are next to impossible.
Realistically, even if they were available, these rates are meant for scientific use only. They are statistics, which means that no one person should ever expect that the number should apply to them. Just because only twenty-three out of one hundred people survived esophageal cancer for five years doesn’t mean you should necessarily expect to die sooner. That just creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. A patient that expects to die is much more likely to do so.
These cancer survival rate numbers were never intended to be used by patients as a diagnostic tool or a psychological crutch. A much better way to assess your actual, individual prognosis is to talk to an expert — such as an oncologist — and to do your own research and find a treatment that you can put your trust in and stick to. Cancer survival rates should be treated as an interesting numerological phenomenon, and nothing more.