Americans Are Surviving the Scariest Diagnoses

The five-year survival rate for people diagnosed with aggressive cancers is a lot better than it used to be, but is still in need of improving.

A study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report found that two out of three people diagnosed with cancer survive five years or more.

This is an encouraging sign, showing that important steps have been taken to beat this scariest of diseases.

The most common cancer sites continue to be cancers of the prostate (128 cases per 100,000 men), female breast (122 cases per 100,000 women), lung and bronchus (61 cases per 100,000 persons), and colon and rectum (40 cases per 100,000 persons), the report found.

While the five-year survival rate has really improved for prostate cancer (97%), breast cancer (88%) and colorectal cancer (63%), it is still terrible for lung cancer (18%).

Long-term survival following a diagnosis of cancer has everything to do with early detection and treatment. New tests will surely help with this, but perhaps the biggest factor in reducing the toll cancer takes on this country will be a big reduction in the number of Americans who lack health insurance, the CDC said.