Survival Rates Cancer Type

When some average mope at a party learns that I blog about brain tumors, I get questions, a lot of particularly morbid questions like:

• “How bad is brain cancer compared to other cancers?”
• “How long does ______(our friend)  have to live?”
• “What’s the worst cancer to have?”

I rarely know how to answer these questions because it’s hard to think of a brain tumor or cancer that isn’t bad and I know almost nothing about the victim's situation.

I just found the Cancer Research UK website, though, which is helpful in providing information on how to compare the different cancers.  The average survival rates give everybody – victims, caregivers, friends & family – have some vague idea of what to expect (although, as with most everything in life, your survival rate may differ).

If you go to this website, poke around a bit, there’s a lot of good information.

Here’s a link: http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/survival/common-cancers-compared#heading-Zero

John

PS - I find this whole business of comparing cancers and deciding whose friend/relative/significant other has the worse cancer to be particularly idiotic.  Here’s my excerpt from my book, “Chief Complaint, Brain Tumor” - http://www.chief-complaint.com/ - about such inane conversations:

“The phrase “brain tumor” is scary and difficult to slide into any casual,

over-the-fence-with-the-neighbor conversation. I imagined the following

conversation when running into a friend at Starbuck’s:

“Hey Fred, how’s it going?”

“Great! Our daughter Mary just made the high school jazz band as the

bass player, the only student to ever be picked as a sophomore.”

“Congratulations!”

“And you, how’s it going?”

“Well, I’ve just been diagnosed with a brain tumor—the tumor’s as big

as your wife’s fist.”

“No shit. Well…how about them Bears?”

And with your more competitive acquaintances, I could imagine the

following conversation with Ashton:

“John, how are you? It’s good to see you.”

“I’ve just been diagnosed as having a brain tumor.”

“Really, what kind?”

“It’s a Grade I meningioma. It’s about as big as your fist.”

“Well, my brother Dave has a Grade III metastatic brain tumor. It’s a

Gliomas type of brain tumor. We’re very worried about it infiltrating adjacent

brain tissue. You should be grateful that you only have a Grade I meningioma!”

Central Brain Tumor Registry of the United States

When I talk to victims and caregivers and friends and family members of brain tumor victims I get a lot of questions, questions like:

• What are my chances? (Of survival)
• How many people get this!? This is usually asked loudly or poignantly or despairingly so I added an exclamation point.)
• Why me? (What did I do wrong?)

Horribly and embarrassingly, I usually have no answers or, at best, pretty bad answers.

Worse yet, as a society/national/people don’t seem to have many answers to these pointed questions begging to be answered.

But today I did stumble across the “Central Brain Tumor Registry of the United States“ which provides some answers to those who live in the US and worldwide: http://www.cbtrus.org/factsheet/factsheet.html

The answers it provides tend to be the cold, heartless facts of brain tumors, how many cases per year, which age groups, males versus females, etc.

Here’s some numbers that jumped out at me and hit me hard right between the eyes: “An estimated 68,470 new cases of primary malignant and non-malignant brain and CNS tumors are expected to be diagnosed in the United States in 2015. This includes an estimated 23,180 primary malignant and 45,300 non-malignant that are expected to be diagnosed in the US in 2015.”

I found that depressing. 68,470 is the population of a good-sized city. The idea of an entire city of brain tumor victims makes me cringe.

Perhaps most depressing are the bleak five-year survival rates which are tiered by age. For example, the five-year relative survival rates following diagnosis of a primary malignant brain and CNS tumor for somebody 55 to 74 years old is 17.7%. 17.7%? 17.7%!

Since my wife and I have a very, very good college friend who fits that demographic, right now I’m very, very sad. L

If you’re interested go to the link and have a look. Personally I found a lot of data and not hardly any answers.

GBM: Where to find more detailed (survival) stats?

Everybody I’ve met who’s had a brain tumor wants to know the stats: what are my odds? How long will I live? What if I eat lots of chia seeds? I’m a stage III GBM, what are those odds? 

There’s a great discussion of all this on the Inspire website right now: http://www.inspire.com/groups/american-brain-tumor-association/discussion/gbm-where-to-find-more-detailed-stats/?ref=as&asat=183201391  

The discussion thread was started with the following questions: “I've read all the general stats for a grade IV GBM, but where can I find more detailed information? For instance, how does the survival rate differ for operable vs. inoperable tumors? How does it differ by age group? Is there a site or source that gives details such as these?”

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