The 10-year survival rate for about 57,000 patients diagnosed with cancer during the four years from 2001 to 2004 was 55.5 percent, up 1.3 points from the previous survey, the National Cancer Center Japan said Wednesday.
The survey revealed that the earlier cancer is found, the higher the survival rate becomes, showing anew the importance of early detection.
The center referred to data on 57,147 patients treated at 20 hospitals that provide specialized cancer treatment and calculated a 10-year survival rate, while correcting for those who had died from causes other than cancer.
It was the third time to calculate such rates, with the calculation method improved for greater accuracy in the latest survey. Using this new method, a previous survey conducted on patients diagnosed with cancer during the four years from 2000 was calculated to reveal a survival rate of 54.2 percent. Thanks to the improvement of cancer treatments since then, it seems highly likely the survival rate for current cancer patients will increase.
Prostate cancer marked the highest survival rate at 92.4 percent, while the lowest was pancreatic cancer at 5 percent. By stages of cancer progression, the survival rates for Stage 1 of stomach, colon and uterine cancers were about 90 percent, but survival rates for Stage 4 of these same cancers became less than 10 percent.
The results of the survey can be viewed on the Japanese Association of Clinical Cancer Centers' website at http://www.zengankyo.ncc.go.jp/etc/
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