Cancer cure for 32 cancer types: results from the EUROCARE-5 study

Background Few studies have estimated the probability of being cured for cancer patients. This study aims to estimate population-based indicators of cancer cure in Europe by type, sex, age and period. Methods 7.2 million cancer patients (42 population-based cancer registries in 17 European countries) diagnosed at ages 15–74 years in 1990–2007 with follow-up to 2008 were selected from the EUROCARE-5 dataset. Mixture-curemodels were used to estimate: (i) life expectancy of fatal cases (LEF); (ii) cure fraction (CF) as proportion of patients with same death rates as the general population; (iii) time to cure (TTC) as time to reach 5-year conditional relative survival (CRS) >95%. Results LEF ranged from 10 years for chronic lymphocytic leukaemia patients to <6 months for those with liver, pancreas, brain, gallbladder and lung cancers. It was 7.7 years for patients with prostate cancer at age 65–74 years and >5 years for women with breast cancer. The CF was 94% for testis, 87% for thyroid cancer in women and 70% in men, 86% for skin melanoma in women and 76% in men, 66% for breast, 63% for prostate and <10% for liver, lung and pancreatic cancers. TTC was <5 years for testis and thyroid cancer patients diagnosed below age 55 years, and <10 years for stomach, colorectal, corpus uteri and melanoma patients of all ages. For breast and prostate cancers, a small excess (CRS<95%) remained for at least 15 years. Conclusions Estimates from this analysis should help to reduce unneeded medicalization and costs. They represent an opportunity to improve patients’ quality of life.

DAL MASO Luigino;  PANATO Chiara;  TAVILLA Andrea;  GUZZINATI Stefano;  SERRAINO Diego;  MALLONE Sandra;  BOTTA Laura;  BOUSSARI Olayidé;  CAPOCACCIA Riccardo;  COLONNA Marc;  CROCETTI Emanuele;  DUMAS Agnes;  DYBA Tadeusz Artur;  FRANCESCHI Silvia;  GATTA Gemma;  GIGLI Anna;  GIUSTI Francesco;  JOOSTE Valerie;  MINICOZZI Pamela;  NEAMTIU Luciana;  ROMAIN Gaelle;  ZORZI Manuel;  DE ANGELIS Roberta;  FRANCISCI Silvia; 

2021-01-13

OXFORD UNIV PRESS

JRC118259

0300-5771 (online),   

https://academic.oup.com/ije/article-abstract/49/5/1517/5912108?redirectedFrom=fulltext,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC118259,   

10.1093/ije/dyaa128 (print),