Question: What is the percentage of people that survive from cancer?

Karin Purshouse answered on 10 Jun 2022:

Hi, that’s a great question although it’s difficult to answer because cancers are so different. For example, the 10-year survival from all testicular cancers diagnosed is 98%, whereas the 10 year survival from all pancreatic cancer diagnoses is much lower. Testicular cancer, melanoma, prostate cancer and Hodgkin’s lymphoma all have 10-year survival higher than 80%. Cancers that are difficult to diagnose/treat tend to have lower survival, such as brain, oesophageal, lung and pancreatic cancers. That’s one of the reasons I do brain cancer research, because I hope to improve how well patients do when they are diagnosed with this kind of cancer.
The other really important thing to mention is that many cancers are treatable if caught early. For example, breast cancer can often be found early, and we know a lot about breast cancer biology and treatments to reduce the risk of it coming back, so often we can cure it.
So it’s really difficult to say how many people survive cancer overall because it depends on what type of cancer it is, how early it is caught and what treatments might be possible.
I hope that answers your question! I got some of the numbers from my answer above from the Cancer Research UK website, if you want to find out more.