Breast Cancer Survival Rates on the Rise

October 14, 2005 - Breast cancer research, compiled over the last 30-years, now expects that two thirds of women diagnosed with breast cancer will survive up to 20-years.

This significant lifespan improvement was discovered at the UKs Cancer Research Center. In the early 1990s, any woman who was diagnosed before age 50 was only given a 60% chance of surviving the next 10-years, and a 50% chance of surviving 20-years. During this past decade the survival rates have risen dramatically from 54-percent up to 72-percent. In addition, the same study estimates that approximately 80-percent of women diagnosed with breast cancer between the ages of 50 and 69-years-old will survive for at least 10 years.

Professor Michel Coleman, an epidemiologist from Cancer Research UK who compiled the report, says that overall the study indicates that long-term survival for women diagnosed with breast cancer their 50s and 60s has improved dramatically over the last 10 years. Dr. Coleman also expects a similar rise in the survival rates for younger women.

Coleman and his fellow researchers attribute this increased lifespan to the spread of popular information, advanced treatments and effective drugs. For example, Herceptin, a drug thats shown improvements in early stage cancer treatments, was approved by the government last week following an effective test case in Somerset, England. Dr Sarah Rawlings, head of policy at Breakthrough Breast Cancer, applauds the government saying, “If we want to improve survival rates even further then rapid access to diagnosis and treatment are key.”

Source: myDNA