The share of the cancer patients who live fife years after the diagnosis has increased significantly since the beginning 1980s (5 year survival rate). The total survival rates of women and men have further leveled up in all cancer types. But the relative 5 year survival rates of the individual types of cancer look very different: e.g. the good prognosis of breast cancer as the most frequent cancer of women is crucially responsible for the total survival rate in women. The higher survival of men essentially is due to the strong increase of new prostate cancer cases and the sinking mortality at the same time. The prognosis for pancreatic and lung cancer remains unfavourable. Even though the survival for lung cancer patients could be increased by 7 % , amongst others due to target-oriented therapies, the absolute number of the long-term survivors stays low.
Source: Robert Koch-Institut [Hrsg.] (2010) Verbreitung von Krebsneuerkrankungen in Deutschland. Entwicklung der Prävalenzen zwischen 1990 und 2010. Beiträge zur Gesundheitsberichtserstattung des Bundes. RKI, Berlin
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