Bladder cancer survival rate

Bladder cancer is a somewhat scarcely diagnosed cancer in the United States, with an estimated number of new diagnoses in 2010 of a little over 70,000. However, the clear majority of these diagnoses will be in men, as they account for over 52,000 of them, with woman accounting for the remaining 18,000.

Incidence and mortality from bladder cancer

While an estimated 70,000 new cases of bladder cancer will be diagnosed, approximately 14,680 men and women will succumb to bladder cancer.

The median age at diagnosis of bladder cancer is 73, with the majority of cases occurring in people between ages 65 and 84. The disease is extraordinarily rare in men and women under the age of 44.

The median age at death from bladder cancer is 78. As mentioned, the disease is more common in men than in women, with an age-adjusted death rate among men of all races being 7.5 per 100,000 males, and 2.2 per 100,000 females.

Based on the most recent data, about 2.39% of men and women born today will receive a diagnosis of bladder cancer in their lifetime.

Bladder cancer survival rates by stage

The following statistics show the extent to which the cancer is known to have remained localized, or to have spread, followed by what is called a 5-year survival relative percentage—a figure that stands for the percentage of people who are expected to be alive 5 years following diagnosis at each stage:

• -- In situ disease (only in area where it began): 96.6%
• -- Localized disease (confined to a sole primary site): 70.7%
• -- Regional disease (spread to local lymph nodes): 34.6%
• -- Metastatic disease: 5.4%
• -- Stage unknown: 49.1%

As is clear from the data, when discovered and treated early, bladder cancer is highly responsive to treatment and often quite curable. However, the disease turns into a very deadly one if not discovered until it has metastasized throughout the body, with a grim 5.4% of metastatic patients expected to survive beyond five years from diagnosis.

Sources

National Cancer Institute SEER Stat Fact Sheets: Bladder cancer

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