Having a cancer diagnosis can be a scary, confusing and emotional time. But knowing a little about the stage of your disease can help you feel more in control and less anxious during treatment.
Your doctor may use numbers to determine how severe your cancer is, and these numbers are a helpful guide to how your life expectancy will be. But survival statistics are only a small part of the picture, and the prognosis will vary depending on a number of factors, including your age, health, where your cancer has spread and what kind of treatment you get.
The 5-year relative survival rate, which is a measure of how many people with the same type of cancer who were diagnosed 5 years ago will live for this period, is 28%. This rate is based on studies that were done a few years ago, but as treatments improve, those numbers are likely to rise.
If you’re a stage 4 cancer patient, the goal of treatment is to relieve symptoms, improve your quality of life and try to prevent your cancer from spreading further. The most common treatments are chemotherapy, surgery and other types of drugs that target cancer cells.
Some medicines can also help slow the growth of your cancer by blocking signals that prompt them to divide. These are called targeted therapy drugs and can be used to treat several kinds of cancer.
You may also be able to find out whether your cancer could respond to one of these medications by getting tests that look for specific proteins or genetic mutations in the tumor’s cells. This information can help your doctor decide which drug to give you.
How long you will live with your stage 4 cancer depends on a variety of factors, including how far it has spread, how healthy you are and how well your cancer responds to treatment. But no two cases of mesothelioma are the same, so you won’t know exactly how long you will live until your doctor gives you a final diagnosis.
A cancer that’s gotten to this point usually can’t be cured. In most cases, stage 4 cancer means the disease has spread to other parts of the body and is unlikely to be completely removed. However, some people with stage 4 cancer still live for a while after they are treated, even with the most aggressive methods.
Fortunately, with more advanced research and better treatment options, the survival rates for patients with stage 4 lung cancer are slowly improving. For instance, the overall 5-year survival rate for stage 4 lung cancer has risen in recent years.
The survival rate for people with breast cancer that has spread to the liver or other parts of the body is about 30%, which is much better than it was a few years ago. This is because more women are taking part in clinical trials that test new treatments for their cancers and finding them to be effective.
