You or a loved one have been diagnosed with cancer – now what do you do? Get yourself armed with as much knowledge as you can; knowledge is power and can help ease the anxiety of the uncertainty before you. Your spirit and attitude can also make a world of difference – along with having a good support system.

Understanding Life Expectancy

When diagnosed with cancer, people often want to know what their chances of survival are. Some survivors frequently hesitate to plan for the future, because they worry about how long they will live after their cancer treatment. Some people choose to simply live one day at a time. Others want to know more about how they will be impacted in the future and want to know their chances of staying healthy and living a long life. Typically, the health care team will address these inquiries using statistics and life expectancy information.

Sometimes the information health care professionals use to estimate life expectancy can seem very overwhelming and confusing. They often use statistics or percentages when they talk about life expectancy, and it's important to find out where those numbers come from and how they apply to you.

Realize that survivors have been known to prove the statistics wrong. While knowing statistics about your life expectancy may give you a better idea of how long other survivors of your specific type of cancer have lived, their experience could be very different from yours. By talking to members of your health care team about your life expectancy, you can find out what healthy behaviors may increase your chances of living longer.

Know the facts about survival statistics

In the early 1900s, few cancer patients had any hope of long-term survival. In the 1930s, about one in four was still alive five years after treatment. By the 1960’s, that figure was up to one in three. Advances in medicine are continuing to improve these odds.

• About 491,400 Americans, or 4 of 10 patients who get cancer this year, are expected to be living five years after diagnosis. This 40% is called the "observed" survival rate.

• When adjusted for normal life expectancy (factors such as dying of heart disease, accidents, and diseases of old age), a "relative" 5-year survival rate of 58% is seen for all cancers.

Okay, what’s with all of this “5-year” stuff?

Typically, cancer statistics are presented as a 5-year survival rate, but many cancer survivors live much longer than this. Five-year relative survival rates are commonly used to monitor progress in early detection and treatment of cancer. These rates include people who are living five years after diagnosis, whether in remission, disease-free, or under treatment. While these rates provide some indication about the average survival experience of cancer patients in a given population, they are less informative when used to predict individual prognosis.

Statistics that your health care team shares with you should be related to:

• Your type of cancer and the stage of your disease when you were diagnosed
• Specific characteristics of your type of cancer
• Treatments you receive
• The uniqueness of you (including your physical and emotional health)

Keep in mind that the statistics used to estimate your life expectancy should be used as very general guidelines. They are not exact calculations of how long you are going to live. Your situation may be very different from what the statistics suggest because the survivors in the studies used that resulted in these statistics are not exactly like you. Everyone responds to treatment differently, and it's impossible to determine exactly how your treatment will affect you during your survivorship.

Questions to ask about the statistics relating to your life expectancy

• Did I receive the same treatment as the people on which the statistic is based?

• If my life expectancy is 10-20 years, does this mean I can expect to live 10-20 years without the cancer returning? If it returns, does that change my life expectancy?

• Are there any special circumstances such as other illnesses or aftereffects of treatment that could affect my life expectancy?

• What is the quality of life among the percentage of people with my particular type of cancer who survived?

• Can I do anything to increase my life expectancy?

Sources: American Cancer Society; Lance Armstrong Foundation; W.S. Harpham, Diagnosis: Cancer: Your Guide to the First Months of Healthy Survivorship