5 year survival rate = 82% for my wifes stage of breast cancer that she has why does it say?
that when she survives 7 years the survival rate drops. ” After seven years, the survival rate decreases for each stage. ”
Here is the link: http://www.imaginis.com/breasthealth/staging3.asp
I do not understand this because after 7 years of not having cancer should’nt it be a “normal-life span” after being cancer free?
No, because breast cancer can still recur at 7, 10, 15, even 20 years after the intitial treatment - basically any time. It may remain "dormant" for many years and then start growing again at distant sites where it has been sitting quietly microscopically all along.
I know this seems strange. Still, most that will come back do so in the first 5 years.
A smaller percentage come back after that, but of course these odd cases of late recurrence are added on to the early recurrences which makes the overall survival lower at 7 or 10 or later years.
Statistics can drive you crazy. It's usually best not to get too wound up trying to figure them out. Once you have done all you can do, it doesn't make much sense to add worry and stress over the unknowable.
Statistics never tell you what you really want to know. We never know when to declare someone "cured" of breast cancer. Even if we lose someone 20 years after breast cancer treatment from something else - a car accident or whatever - we don't know for certain whether the person was actually harboring a few dormant bits of the original breast cancer.
Many men with prostate cancer die from some other cause and may be found to have also had residual prostate cancer if an autopsy is done. Hormonally responsive malignancies are even more unpredictable than other types - - though I tell audiences when I give lectures that all of the different cancer types follow no set rules. They are by definition aberrant, uncontrolled cellular growth.
I suppose it is a success for the oncologist to control a cancer until a person lives out a normal life span. Internists never really cure high blood pressure - we just try to control it. We try to stave off death from every disease threat as long as possible.
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