title: Are increasing 5-year survival rates evidence of success against cancer?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Increased 5-year survival for cancer patients is generally inferred to mean that cancer treatment has improved and that fewer patients die of cancer. Increased 5-year survival, however, may also reflect changes in diagnosis: finding more people with early-stage cancer, including some who would never have become symptomatic from their cancer.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To determine the relationship over time between 5-year cancer survival and 2 other measures of cancer burden, mortality and incidence.
  
  
  METHODS
  Using population-based statistics reported by the National Cancer Institute Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program, we calculated the change in 5-year survival from 1950 to 1995 for the 20 most common solid tumor types. Using the tumor as the unit of analysis, we correlated changes in 5-year survival with changes in mortality and incidence.
  
  
  METHODS
  The association between changes in 5-year survival and changes in mortality and incidence measured using simple correlation coefficients (Pearson and Spearman).
  
  
  RESULTS
  From 1950 to 1995, there was an increase in 5-year survival for each of the 20 tumor types. The absolute increase in 5-year survival ranged from 3% (pancreatic cancer) to 50% (prostate cancer). During the same period, mortality rates declined for 12 types of cancer and increased for the remaining 8 types. There was little correlation between the change in 5-year survival for a specific tumor and the change in tumor-related mortality (Pearson r=.00; Spearman r=-.07). On the other hand, the change in 5-year survival was positively correlated with the change in the tumor incidence rate (Pearson r=+. 49; Spearman r=+.37).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Although 5-year survival is a valid measure for comparing cancer therapies in a randomized trial, our analysis shows that changes in 5-year survival over time bear little relationship to changes in cancer mortality. Instead, they appear primarily related to changing patterns of diagnosis. JAMA. 2000.
authors.affiliation: VA Outcomes Group (111B), Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, White River Junction, VT 05009, USA.
authors.forename: H G
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Welch
authors.forename: L M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Schwartz
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Woloshin
mesh_terms: D017281:Cost of Illness; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000401:mortality* / Q000517:prevention & control; D018426:SEER Program; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D015996:Survival Rate; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology