Breast Cancer Survival Statistics and Results
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How do you decide where to go for treatment after you have been diagnosed with breast cancer? At Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA), we believe that knowing the breast cancer survival rates of patients who are treated at our hospitals is one of the things that can help you and your family as you make this decision. Therefore, we asked an independent, third-party biostatistician to analyze the cancer statistics related to patients who were treated at CTCA.
The chart below shows the cancer survival rates of 97 advanced-stage breast cancer patients who were diagnosed between 2004 and 2008. All these patients were initially diagnosed at a CTCA cancer center and/or received their first treatment at CTCA.
Ninety-six percent of the CTCA patients shown in the above graph survived for six months. This means that six months after their diagnosis, nearly 96% of the patients in this group were still alive.
Breast cancer survival rates are also meaningful when compared to the results of other treatment centers. Unfortunately, most hospitals and treatment centers don’t make their cancer survival statistics available to the public. When they do, the results are not always consistently presented, so objective comparisons are difficult.
As an alternative, we asked the independent biostatistician to analyze and compare our cancer statistics to national cancer survival rates that are gathered by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). This database is called the NCI Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Program, or SEER, for short. The SEER web site can be accessed at seer.cancer.gov or you can learn more at the NCI SEER Program page.
The chart below shows a comparison between CTCA and SEER on the survival rates of advanced-stage breast cancer patients who were diagnosed between 2000 and 2005. All 71 CTCA patients were initially diagnosed at CTCA and/or received their first treatment at CTCA.
In the above chart, the patients in both samples had advanced-stage breast cancer. Because the SEER database did not provide staging information for patients diagnosed in 2004 and 2005, the SEER sample includes only those patients diagnosed between 2000 and 2003.
The green bars represent advanced-stage cancer patient survival rates from CTCA. The blue bars represent advanced-stage patient survival rates from the SEER database.
These differences in cancer survival rates are statistically significant.
As you study the chart, it's important to remember that the estimated CTCA breast cancer survival rates were based on a relatively small sample of 71 advanced-stage breast cancer patients and therefore were subject to a high degree of variation. The CTCA sample is small because only advanced-stage cancer patients who had been initially diagnosed at CTCA and/or received their first treatment at CTCA were included. This, among other factors, means that the estimates reflected in the survival chart may not be replicated in the future when a larger CTCA sample is available for comparison.
We also want to be sure you understand that cancer is a complex disease and each person’s medical condition is different; therefore, CTCA makes no claims about the efficacy of specific treatments or the delivery of care and not all cancer patients who are treated at a CTCA hospital may experience these same results.
We're Here for You
If you have questions about our colon cancer survival results or the comparison chart presented here, call our Oncology Information Specialists who are available 24 hours a day, every day of the year, at 1-800-615-3055. You can also Chat Now or explore our breast cancer treatment program in more detail.
More:
Breast Cancer Quality of Life
Breast Cancer Patient Experience
HCAHPS Results
Speed of Care
Breast Cancer Survivors
