What is survival rate for colon cancer

Bowel cancer incidence. Diagnosis and treatment. Statistics and information on cancer incidence, mortality, survival and risk factors causes by cancer type are presented here. See information and explanations on terminology used for statistics and reporting of cancer, and the methods used to calculate some of our statistics. You are welcome to reuse this Cancer Research UK content for your own work.

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We are grateful to the many organisations across the UK which collect, analyse, and share the data which we use, and to the patients and public who consent for their data to be used.

Find out more about the sources which are essential for our statistics. Skip to main content. Survive bowel cancer for 10 or more years, , England. Age that bowel cancer survival is highest, , England.

Bowel cancer survival in the UK has more than doubled in the last 40 years. One-, five- and ten-year survival for bowel cancer. See also Cancer survival statistics for common cancers in the UK. Last reviewed: 2 April Bowel cancer survival by age. See also Bowel cancer incidence statistics by age Bowel cancer mortality statistics by age Cancer survival statistics by age for all cancers in the UK.

References Office for National Statistics. Cancer survival in England: adults diagnosed in to , followed up to Newport: ONS; Last reviewed: 11 May Bowel cancer survival trends over time. Statistics alone will not determine your outcomes. But, you can use them to make decisions about your treatment plan.

Most commonly, survival statistics are explained in terms of relative survival, meaning colorectal cancer is the cause of death for the patient. Thanks to increased screening and advanced treatment options, relative survival rates of colorectal cancer are on the rise. Cancer statistics commonly use a five-year interval when it comes to sharing relative survival rates.

For colorectal cancer like many other cancers the risk of recurrence, which means cancer returns after a period of being gone, significantly decreases once a patient has been disease-free for at least five years. Relative survival rates will vary dramatically based on cancer stage. This means that cancer cells have only been found in the colon or rectum, where the cancer was initially discovered. Localized colorectal cancer is the most curable and can be caught with colorectal cancer screening.

This often pertains to stage I and stage II colon or rectal cancers. Regional colorectal cancer means that cancer cells were also found in the lymph nodes surrounding the tumor or tissues.

This most often pertains to stage III. Metastatic colorectal cancer mCRC is distant cancer. This means the cancer is not just in the colon or rectum. These statistics apply to patients with metastases to the liver, lungs, or other organs. Metastatic colorectal cancer is also referred to as stage IV. Doctors may also recommend a diverting colostomy, which essentially cuts the colon above the cancerous tissue and diverts the waste from the body out through a small opening in the skin.

If the colon cancer has spread too far for surgery to be effective, chemotherapy is the primary treatment option. Most people with stage 4 colon cancer will receive chemotherapy or specific targeted therapies to help control the cancer progression or symptoms. Doctors may recommend some treatment regimens that include a targeting drug, which targets either the vascular endothelial growth factor VEGF pathway or the epithelial growth factor receptor EGFR pathway.

The choice between regimens will vary in each situation. The most suitable option will depend on the types of treatment that a person has had before, their overall health, and their responsiveness to treatment. It is not uncommon for doctors to try multiple treatments. If the cancer does not respond to the first treatment, they may stop that treatment and start another instead. Doctors may also recommend radiation therapy in late-stage colon cancer to help reduce symptoms such as pain and discomfort.

This treatment might even shrink the tumor for a time, but it will not usually cure the cancer. A hepatic artery infusion may be a treatment option for people with colon cancer that has spread to the liver. Hepatic artery infusion is a type of regional chemotherapy, which involves delivering a chemotherapy drug directly into the hepatic artery in the liver. This treatment may help destroy cancer cells without harming the healthy liver cells in the process.

Ablation or embolization may be appropriate for people who have metastatic or reoccurring colorectal cancer that causes a few tumors in the lung or liver that are less than 4 centimeters across. Ablation uses either radio frequencies, microwaves, or alcohol — which people also call percutaneous ethanol injection PEI — to target and kill cancer cells while leaving the surrounding tissues relatively unharmed. During embolization, a doctor will inject substances into the blood vessels to try to block or reduce the blood flow to cancer cells in the liver.

In these cases, people may decide against medical treatment that seeks to cure the cancer and instead opt for palliative care to try to make living more comfortable. As the ACS note, colon cancer is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in both males and females in the United States. One in 22 men and one in 24 women will receive a colon cancer diagnosis during their lifetime.

Stage 4 colon cancer is late-stage cancer in which the disease has spread to other tissues or organs in the body and is, therefore, more difficult to treat. Instead, it groups cancers into localized, regional, and distant stages:. Having regular colonoscopies allows doctors to find and remove pre-cancerous or cancerous polyps before they begin to affect the colon or rectum.

Treatment for colon cancer is mainly determined by how far it has spread cancer stage. Stage I colon cancers have grown deeper into the layers of the colon wall, but they have not spread outside the colon wall itself or into the nearby lymph nodes.

Stage I includes cancers that were part of a polyp.