Colon Cancer Survival Statistics and Results

Click here to review statistical methodology and limitations.

How do you decide where to go for treatment after you have been diagnosed with colon cancer? At Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA), we believe that knowing the survival rates of colon cancer 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 survival results of patients who were treated at CTCA.

The chart below shows the survival results of 121 advanced-stage colon 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.

Eighty-seven percent of the CTCA patients shown in the above graph survived for six months. This means that six months after their diagnosis, 87% of the patients in this group were still alive.

Survival rates are also meaningful when compared to the results of other treatment centers. Unfortunately, most hospitals and treatment centers don’t make their 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 survival statistics to national cancer survival statistics 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 colon cancer patients who were diagnosed between 2000 and 2005. All 129 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 colon 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 survival rates are statistically significant.

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 colon cancer treatment program in more detail.

More:
Colon Cancer Quality of Life
Colon Cancer Patient Experience
HCAHPS Results
Speed of Care
Colon Cancer Survivors