Survival rate refers to the percentage of people with a certain type and stage of the mesothelioma patient who survive for a specific period of time after their diagnosis. Most of these statistics focus on 5-year survival rate. The overall 5-year relative mesothelioma survival rate for 1998-2002 has been found approximately 9 percent.
There are no national statistics available for different stages of cancer or treatments that people may have received. The statistics we present here are pulled together from a variety of sources, including the opinions and experience of the experts. These statistics are only intended as a general guide and cannot be regarded as any more than that.
For cancer, the outcome depends on how advanced the cancer is when it is diagnosed. Usually with cancer, the statistics are given for each stage and the stage is just as important for mesothelioma as it is for other cancers. For mesothelioma, statistics finding is more difficult to do because;
- Although incidence is increasing, mesothelioma is not that common.
- Normally, people do not have symptoms early on and so don't go to the doctor so it is usually diagnosed when it is advanced.
- Statistics by stage are not readily available since most people don't have surgery and accurate staging needs an operation
The prognosis can be asked to the doctor. However, even the doctor can’t tell for sure what will happen to the patient. Doctor may use the term '5 year survival'. This relates to the proportion of people in research studies who were still alive 5 years after diagnosis. This is because doctors follow what happens to people for 5 years after treatment in any research study.
For both types of mesothelioma (Pleural and Peritoneal mesothelioma), patients are often told that they have only less than a year to live. But mesothelioma specialists, working in leading cancer centres throughout the world, often report better statistics than this based on clinical trials that they are carrying out. Some of these are reported below.
Generally, of all those people diagnosed with mesothelioma only about 1 in 10 (10%) will be alive 3 years later and 1 in 20 (5%) will be alive 5 years later. For those people who have been diagnosed and treated in the earlier stages of the disease, there is little information to draw on. But we have seen reports that quote survival rates of up to 1 in 2 (50%) after 2 years. So the range of survival times is very wide. Survival depends on stage as well as other factors. Here are the main things that influence mesothelioma survival rate:
- Stage of mesothelioma
- Size of the tumor
- Whether this tumor can be removed completely by surgery
- The quantity of fluid in the chest or abdomen
- The age and general health of the patient
- The type of cancer cells and their look under a microscope
- Whether the patient has just been diagnosed with mesothelioma or long back.
Survival rates from clinical trials
Although there are results from quite a few trials available, they are often quite small studies involving fewer than 20 patients or so. We have picked the trials below to report because they are large. The larger the trial, the more reliable the results are likely to be.
At the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, doctors followed 120 patients, with different types of pleural mesothelioma, from 1980-1995. All these patients were treated with surgery to remove the lung and pleura (pleural pneumonectomy), followed by a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, with or without immunotherapy. 54 out of the 120 (45%) patients in this trial were alive 2 years later and 26 out of the 120 (22%) patients were alive 5 years later.
Patients with sarcomatoid and mixed mesothelioma had a poorer prognosis. Of the patients with these types of mesothelioma only 20% were alive 2 years later and by 5 years later, all had died.
Patients with epithelioid type tumours and no cancer in the lymph nodes had a much better outlook. Nearly 3 people out of every 4 (74%) were alive 2 years later and more than 1 person in every 3 (39%) alive 5 years later. (The full results of this trial are published in the February 2002 edition of the medical magazine Seminars in Oncology, volume 29, issue 1, pages 41-50.)
Another study looked at survival with mesothelioma in an area of North West Italy. This is called a population study. The researchers look at the records of everyone diagnosed with the disease in a given area. This study looked at an area with a total population of 4.5 million. Throughout the world, this is the second largest, of 3 population based studies about mesothelioma survival. All three studies have had similar results. One year after diagnosis, on average, 1 in every 4 people (24%) with pleural mesothelioma and 1 in every 3 people (34%) with peritoneal mesothelioma were still alive. (The full results of this trial are published in the July-August, 2002 edition of the Tumori Journal, volume 88, issue 4, pages 266-9).
Another study shows survival rates for each year following a mesothelioma diagnosis as follows:
Survival rate, year 1: 39 percent
- Year 2: 20 percent
- Year 3: 11 percent
- Year 4: 10 percent
- Year 5: 9 percent.
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