The French are recovering more and more from cancer, even if the disparities are strong between the ages and the two sexes.
- The number of people aged 15 and over alive in 2018 and having had cancer during their lifetime is around 3.8 million: 1,844,277 men and 1,991,651 women.
- The professional situation of people who have had cancer has deteriorated considerably five years after diagnosis: the employment rate has fallen from 87.3% to 75.9% and the unemployment rate from 7.3% to 9 .5%.
New results made public this Tuesday, July 6 by INCa show an overall improvement in prognosis in almost all cancer sites. “This improvement in survival is particularly observed for hematological malignancies”, comment oncologists.
Significant increase in survival for the most common cancers
Among the most frequent cancers, we observe a significant increase in net survival at 5 years of respectively +9 points, +11 points and +12 points for:
– breast cancer (1st incident cancer in women with 58,459 cases in 2018);
– lung cancer (2nd most common cancer with 46,363 cases in 2018 for men and women);
– colon and rectum cancers (3rd most common cancer with 43,336 cases in 2018 for men and women).
Although survival is improving for several locations, some cancers with a poor prognosis retain low 5-year survival rates, in men and women. This is particularly the case for cancers associated with tobacco and alcohol (lung, esophagus, liver) for both sexes.
Data analysis focused on 50 solid tumors and 23 hematological malignancies. For solid tumours, the results show a great disparity in the probabilities of survival at 5 years ranging from a very favorable prognosis for thyroid cancer (96%), to the worst prognosis for glioblastoma (central nervous system tumor subtype) and small cell lung cancer (both 7%). “The fight against cancers with a poor prognosis, of which these two subtypes belong, is a priority of the ten-year strategy for the fight against cancer. Specific measures are deployed in order to improve their prevention, their detection and to propose new treatments”explains the INCa.
Women are much more cured of their cancer than men
Whether for solid tumors or hematological malignancies, the study shows differences in survival according to sex in favor of women for almost all the cancers studied. The largest difference is observed for cancers of the lip-mouth-pharynx complex (+ 15 percentage points in women), followed by myelodysplastic syndrome (+ 10 points) and chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (+ 10 points), stomach cancer (+ 8 points), and lung cancer (+ 6 points). Only cancers of the bladder and nasal cavities show less favorable survival in women (respectively – 6 points and – 5 points).
These differences can be explained in particular by:
– greater awareness among women of prevention and screening allowing for earlier diagnoses;
– greater exposure of men to the main cancer risk factors (in particular tobacco and alcohol).
Lower survival as age at diagnosis increases
Strong disparities also appear in the age of the patients. Lower survival is observed when the age at diagnosis increases, with a more marked difference for certain hematological malignancies. The largest difference concerns acute myeloid leukaemias, the 5-year survival rate of which is 69% for the youngest people (30 years old) vs. 6% for the oldest people (80 years old).
“A diagnosis of the disease at a more advanced stage in older people may, in part, explain these age differences. The presence of co-morbidities in older people also limits access to certain curative treatments or may cause post-therapeutic complications and induce a decrease in survival”, analyzes the INCa. Nevertheless, concerning breast and prostate cancers, young people have a lower survival rate than people of intermediate age due to a greater frequency of more aggressive tumours.
.
