Lung Cancer Survival Rates

Survival rates can give you an idea of what percentage of people with the same type and stage of cancer are still alive a certain amount of time (usually 5 years) after they were diagnosed.

How do the numbers apply to you?

Survival rates can’t tell you how long you will live, but they may help give you a better understanding of how likely it is that your treatment will be successful.

Keep in mind that survival rates are estimates and are often based on previous outcomes of large numbers of people who had a specific cancer, but they can’t predict what will happen in any particular person’s case. These statistics can be confusing and may lead you to have more questions. Ask your doctor, who is familiar with your situation, how these numbers may apply to you.

What is a 5-year relative survival rate?

• Survival Rate: Lung cancer has one of the lowest five-year survival rates because it is usually diagnosed at an advanced stage, when a cure is less likely. The national average for lung cancer survival five years after diagnosis is 26.6 percent.
• Early Diagnosis: Nationwide, only 26.6% of cases are diagnosed at an early stage, and the five-year survival rate is much higher (63%). Unfortunately, 44% of cases are not detected until advanced stages and the survival rate is only 8%.
• Surgery as First Course of Treatment: If lung cancer is diagnosed at an early stage and has not spread, it can often be treated with surgery. Nationwide, 20.8% of cases undergo surgery.
• Lack of Treatment: There are a variety of reasons why patients may not receive treatment after diagnosis. Some of these reasons may be unavoidable, but no one should be denied treatment because of a lack of healthcare provider or patient knowledge, stigma associated with lung cancer, fatalism after diagnosis, or the cost of treatment. Nationwide, 20.6% of cases go untreated.
• Health Disparities: Highlights that while people of color have significantly higher survival rates, people of color diagnosed with lung cancer continue to face worse outcomes compared to whites, including being less likely to be diagnosed early, less likely to receive surgical treatment, and more likely to go untreated.

A relative survival rate compares people with the same type and stage of cancer to people in the overall population. For example, if the 5-year relative survival rate for a specific stage of lung cancer is 60%, it means that people who have that cancer are, on average, about 60% as likely as people who don’t have that cancer to live for at least 5 years after being diagnosed.

Where do these numbers come from?

The American Cancer Society relies on information from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database, maintained by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), to provide survival statistics for different types of cancer.

The SEER database tracks 5-year relative survival rates for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and small cell lung cancer (SCLC) in the United States, based on how far the cancer has spread. The SEER database, however, does not group cancers by AJCC TNM stages (stage 1, stage 2, stage 3, etc.). Instead, it groups cancers into localized, regional, and distant stages:

• Localized: There is no sign that the cancer has spread outside of the lung.
• Regional: The cancer has spread outside the lung to nearby structures or lymph nodes.
• Distant: The cancer has spread to distant parts of the body, such as the brain, bones, liver, or the other lung.