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. 2019 Aug;8(9):4497-4507.
doi: 10.1002/cam4.2276. Epub 2019 Jun 17.

Prognosis and cure of long-term cancer survivors: A population-based estimation

Luigino Dal Maso  1 , Chiara Panato  1 , Stefano Guzzinati  2 , Diego Serraino  1 , Silvia Francisci  3 , Laura Botta  4 , Riccardo Capocaccia  1 , Andrea Tavilla  3 , Anna Gigli  5 , Emanuele Crocetti  6 , Massimo Rugge  2   7 , Giovanna Tagliabue  8 , Rosa Angela Filiberti  9 , Giuliano Carrozzi  10 , Maria Michiara  11 , Stefano Ferretti  12 , Rosaria Cesaraccio  13 , Rosario Tumino  14 , Fabio Falcini  6 , Fabrizio Stracci  15 , Antonietta Torrisi  16 , Guido Mazzoleni  17 , Mario Fusco  18 , Stefano Rosso  19 , Francesco Tisano  20 , Anna Clara Fanetti  21 , Giovanna Maria Sini  22 , Carlotta Buzzoni  23   24 , Roberta De Angelis  25 ; AIRTUM Working group
Collaborators, Affiliations

Prognosis and cure of long-term cancer survivors: A population-based estimation

Luigino Dal Maso et al. Cancer Med. 2019 Aug.

Abstract

Background: Increasing evidence of cure for some neoplasms has emerged in recent years. The study aimed to estimate population-based indicators of cancer cure.

Methods: Information on more than half a million cancer patients aged 15-74 years collected by population-based Italian cancer registries and mixture cure models were used to estimate the life expectancy of fatal tumors (LEFT), proportions of patients with similar death rates of the general population (cure fraction), and time to reach 5-year conditional relative survival (CRS) >90% or 95% (time to cure).

Results: Between 1990 and 2000, the median LEFT increased >1 year for breast (from 8.1 to 9.4 years) and prostate cancers (from 5.2 to 7.4 years). Median LEFT in 1990 was >5 years for testicular cancers (5.8) and Hodgkin lymphoma (6.3) below 45 years of age. In both sexes, it was ≤0.5 years for pancreatic cancers and NHL in 1990 and in 2000. The cure fraction showed a 10% increase between 1990 and 2000. It was 95% for thyroid cancer in women, 94% for testis, 75% for prostate, 67% for breast cancers, and <20% for liver, lung, and pancreatic cancers. Time to 5-year CRS >95% was <10 years for testis, thyroid, colon cancers, and melanoma. For breast and prostate cancers, the 5-year CRS >90% was reached in <10 years but a small excess remained for >15 years.

Conclusions: The study findings confirmed that several cancer types are curable. Became aware of the possibility of cancer cure has relevant clinical and social impacts.

Keywords: Italy; cancer cure; population-based cancer registries; prevalence; survival.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Estimated cure fraction (%)a by sex, cancer type, and year of diagnosis in Italy. aCalculated as weighted means of corresponding cure fractions for the four age groups (Appendix S4) with weights the number of incident cases. Patients aged 15‐74 years
Figure 2
Figure 2
Cure fraction (%) and time to curea by sex for selected cancer typesb in Italy. aCalculated in 2000 for the most frequent age group (Table 3 and Appendix S4), that is, 65‐74 years but Connective Tissue, Cervix uteri, Testis, Thyroid, and Hodgkin lymphoma (15‐44 years). bCancer types with CF >20% in men or women
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