Survival rates improving for many Americans with a variety of cancers

the Oncology Nurse Advisor take:

According to a new report published in the journal JAMA Oncology, researchers from the Cancer Epidemiology Research Program at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville, Tennessee, have found that survival rates are improving for many people with breast, colon, liver, lung, and prostate cancer.

Survival rates are particularly improving for those diagnosed at younger ages. The researchers also observed differences in survival based on race.

Specifically, blacks had poorer survival compared with whites. Of note, results showed black women with ovarian cancer experienced an increase in risk of death over the last 20 years.

In addition, many patients aged 50 to 64 with breast, colorectal, liver, or prostate cancer had significantly increased odds of survival, but patients aged 75 to 85 with the same cancers had smaller decreases in risk of death.

For the study, researchers analyzed data on over 1 million patients diagnosed with breast, colorectal, liver, lung, ovarian, pancreatic, or prostate cancer between 1990 and 2009 from the U.S. National Cancer Institute Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) study.