5% of Americans are Cancer Survivors - and They're Living Longer (msn.com)
- Reference: 0178718724
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/08/18/0631210/5-of-americans-are-cancer-survivors---and-theyre-living-longer
- Source link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/a-new-reality-for-terminal-cancer-longer-lives-with-chronic-uncertainty/ar-AA1KHnph
Their article tells the story of Gwen Orilio, who was diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer at age 31. Ten years later she's still alive — and she still has metastatic cancer...
> Keeping her going is a string of new treatments that don't cure the disease but can buy months — even years — of time, with the hope that once one drug stops working a new one will come along. Orilio started on chemotherapy, and then switched to a new treatment, and then another, and another, and another... A small but growing population is living longer with incurable or advanced cancer, navigating the rest of their lives with a disease increasingly akin to a chronic illness. The trend, which started in breast cancer, has expanded to patients with melanoma, kidney cancer, lung cancer [2]and others . The new drugs can add years to a life, even for some diagnoses like Orilio's that were once swift death sentences. They also put people in a state of limbo, living on a knife's edge waiting for the next scan to say a drug has stopped working and doctors need to find a new one. The wide range of survival times has made it more difficult for cancer doctors to predict how much time a patient might have left. For most, the options eventually run out....
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> More than 690,000 people were projected to be living with stage-four or metastatic disease of the six most common cancers — melanoma, breast, bladder, colorectal, prostate or [3]lung cancer — in 2025, according to [4]a 2022 report from the National Cancer Institute. That's an increase from 623,000 in 2018 and a significant rise since 1990, the report found... Nearly 30% of survivors diagnosed with metastatic melanoma and 20% of those diagnosed with metastatic colorectal or breast cancer had been living with their disease for a decade or more, the NCI paper estimated... Even for [5]lung cancer , the biggest U.S. cancer killer, the five-year relative survival rate for advanced disease has inched up, from 3.7% for patients diagnosed in 2004 to 9.2% for patients diagnosed in 2017, federal data show. The overall lung cancer survival rate has risen by 26% in the past five years, according to the American Lung Association, as declining cigarette use, [6]screening and new drugs have driven down deaths.
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> The expanding number of therapies that target a cancer's mutations or boost the immune system are improving the outlook for several cancers. In breast cancer, treatment for metastatic disease accounted for [7]29% of the drop in deaths between 1975 and 2019, according to one 2024 estimate, with screening and treatment for early-stage disease accounting for the rest.
The number of American cancer survivors (or those living with cancer) is expected to grow to 26 million by 2040," the article points out.
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/a-new-reality-for-terminal-cancer-longer-lives-with-chronic-uncertainty/ar-AA1KHnph
[2] https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/prostate-cancer-diagnosis-joe-biden-c19f0a43
[3] https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/lung-cancer-treatment-deaths-5cfeb6fd
[4] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35993614/
[5] https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/lung-cancer-treatment-deaths-5cfeb6fd
[6] https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/deadly-lung-cancer-test-b3dec341
[7] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2813878
Some thoughts (Score:3)
While I'm not claiming to be normal, I have mixed thoughts on this. Most people will of course jump at the chance - and make no mistake, the treatments can kill you as well.
Should the need arise, I might just elect to let things progress naturally.
Re:Some thoughts (Score:5, Insightful)
> Should the need arise, I might just elect to let things progress naturally.
I know someone who used to say that. They're about to start chemo.
Me, I'm just mad about the USA ending investment in mRNA cancer drugs. Of course US Big Pharma doesn't want them to exist, because they actually treat cancer quickly.
Re: (Score:1)
What do you expect from a health secretary that wants to kill more people than Adolf, Mao and Joseph combined simply by intentional inaction?
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>> Should the need arise, I might just elect to let things progress naturally.
> I know someone who used to say that. They're about to start chemo.
There is a non-zero chance that I would decide to go chemo, but I'm pretty consistent in giving a lot of thought to such things.
I don't even do maintenance drugs. Others my age that I know are into the multi numbered pill boxes for the dozen or so maintenance drugs they take. And adding more pills for the side effects. So I'm a real minority.
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Because the most profitable companies in the world can't afford or won't invest in research into what could be the most marketable drugs in history.
Alternatively if you are right and they don't want them to exist, handing them baskets of federal dollars is sure to produce results right?
Let some university pay the salaries of the people doing R&D, then mega-drug inc acquires the patents for a tiny fraction of what they are worth and fleeces the public for 25. The current system is just corporate welfare.
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> Let some university pay the salaries
You mean one of the universities that are also being defunded because they won't play along with fascism?
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Right, those Universities. Seems like a good way for them to be able to continue their 'mission' whatever they think it is without having to kowtow to the desires of politicians they don't agree with would be to have alternative source of revenue, no?
If the government isn't a participant in circle jerk you can't have fascism.
Re: (Score:2)
There is nothing stopping US Big Pharma from investing their own money in the research.
Normally on Slashdot there is some objection to a private company taking public money to develop something then also patenting the results and charging monopoly prices. Socialist the risk and privatizing the profits? Sound familiar?
Re: (Score:2)
> Just like happened with HepC, when we finally found the medicine that cures it rather than the long-often-for-life treatment we had previously that supposedly is "Big Pharma's dream situation". How come Big Pharma didn't "hold back" sofosbuvir? Oh wait, because the world doesn't work the way you think it does.
Found the clown who doesn't understand that time passes, and drugs lose patent protection.
Re:Some thoughts (Score:4, Insightful)
It depends a lot on circumstances.
You may change your tune if you have a small child when you get diagnosed.
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> While I'm not claiming to be normal, I have mixed thoughts on this. Most people will of course jump at the chance - and make no mistake, the treatments can kill you as well.
> Should the need arise, I might just elect to let things progress naturally.
Steve Jobs had [1]one of the few treatable forms of Pancreatic cancer [wikipedia.org]. He chose to try treating it with diet, herbs, and other naturopathic means.
They were predictably ineffective and by the time he decided to get treatment (literally the best money could buy) it was too late to get rid of the cancer entirely and he eventually died.
Your body can fight off cancer naturally, but when it does it does so early. When you get diagnosed with cancer it's because your body wasn't able to kill it, and without treatment,
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Resignation
Re: (Score:2)
Had a colleague whose brother tried for a longshot treatment for a late detected colon cancer 10 years prior with a poor prognosis and watched his brother suffer as he dies.
So when he got a much more early detected much more treatable cancer with an over 90% success rate for treatment... He said no, he won't suffer like his brother and instead try "home remedies" instead. So he let the generally treatable cancer kill him.
Just worth noting that circumstances vary wildly case to case, and generally the medica
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Pediatric cancer survivor and long-time pediatric oncology caregiver/volunteer checking in. I see this sentiment a lot from people outside of the cancer community and, I get it: chemotherapy looks brutal because it _is_ brutal.
But you need to understand what "letting things progress naturally" means.
Cancer is uncontrolled cell growth. If you're LUCKY "naturally" means that some gnarly tumor in your brain causes progressively erases you from your own mind over the course of a couple months. If you're unlu
About done (Score:5, Interesting)
Diagnosed at stage 4 at age 51. Told probably dead in 3 years or less. 91% of being dead within 5 years.
They were fairly accurate. It's now 3 years later and I am about done. Currently not in treatment.
They're out of options, other than phase 1 clinical trials and more of the same chemotherapy that has already failed (not to mention beat the shit out of me). I am in so much daily pain and misery that I am about done. I've been holding on for the sake of my now 9 year old child, but I just don't know how much longer I can do it.
I'm certainly going to be dead soon. The only question is whether I manage to take care of it myself before the cancer does it for me.
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Have you looked into the metabolic theory of cancer? If not then I'd suggest giving that a look. The tl;dr for that would be to do the Carnivore Diet which likely slows down the cancer. Then you get a prescription for a shot that helps your body kill the now starving cancer cells (forget the name, a search on the theory should find it). Basically most cancers love and run off glucose. Your body can run off glucose or ketones (technically you use both but one will be significantly higher than the other)
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Don't throw in the towel. Plenty of things you can try. I think everyone's cancer is unique but they share similarities. On average, 4-5 driver mutations with some having as few as 2-3. I would start with reading this and go off figure 2 for your own cancer. [1]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go... [nih.gov]
Then try and find various substances/plants etc on google scholar that act upon the pathways of your cancer that are corrupted. There can be underlying problems that act in synergy to overcome the various overlapped re
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32025007/
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Well, I will miss you.
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I'm sorry for your situation. I certainly cannot imagine what you are going through. At the risk of sounding impertinent --you have most certainly searched areound for the best possible treatment-- I'll share with you an article that sounded like science fiction to me, but that is a real thing: [1] Medicine Spares Cancer Patients From Grisly Surgeries and Harsh Therapies [nytimes.com]
This is my summary:
"Immunotherapy is a treatment that until now has been used as part of a suite of tools to attack cancer. Basically, it's
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/27/health/cancer-immunotherapy-solid-tumors.html?unlocked_article_code=1.C08.FVLZ.FwQUNzrDcn4V&referringSource=articleShare
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I'm really sorry to hear that. We have had many interesting conversations over the years. I will miss you.
Cancer survivors are living longer... (Score:4, Insightful)
... than those who don't survive.
triggered me to soapbox (Score:2)
Maybe we all have cancer, or at least the early stages? With 25-35 trillion cells, what are the odds that what goes on to become cancer and kill us isn't present right now? Study said the seeds of cancer are sometimes sewn decades in advance. Its sort of amazing that one set of code on day 1 (inception) runs/keeps people alive for a hundred years. Its only after a relentless onslaught of viruses, toxins, emotional stress, lack of vitamins/nutrients, that eventually it all breaks down. That's with most of it
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> discoveries that common viruses can lead to cancer.
Hasn't this been known an accepted already? We got the HPV vaccine in 2006 that has reduced the rate of cervical cancers for all people who receive it, mean and women.
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Sounds like Pharma is investing in prolonging customers while funding cures just to slow down cures?
We all know it's best for business to mitigate rather than solve.
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People live longer and cancer medicine made a lot of progress.
Without the right cancer cures, that number would be ~0%. Is that better?
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1st thought... 5% is about the ratio of USA to the human population (340/8000.) I would have expected that number to be higher given the carcinogen exposure.
So let's talk about healthcare (Score:3)
And the big beautiful bill...
Bare minimum it cuts 800 billion out of Medicaid.
It also removes the affordable Care act subsidies.
Finally it triggers a 2014 law that will cut 1 trillion dollars from Medicare.
Also we are going to double the price of medicine because of tariffs.
The medicine that is keeping you alive is going to become unaffordable. People will mortgage their houses and the bank will take the house. Then it's game over.
It doesn't matter if the technology exists if you can't access it. It doesn't matter if there are cancer treatments to somebody in South Sudan. At the rate we're going that's what we're going to look like in 10 years.
Of course you posted that drivel anonymously! (Score:2)
But bottom line is, most of these statistics you're quoting are utterly ridiculous and not based in any kind of reality.
"Gay people are 47% of the population" ?!? Has anyone here experienced that in their own daily lives? Are roughly half of your friends or family gay? Do you run into that when trying to date people, that about half the time you ask someone out, they reject you because "Sorry, but I'm gay/lesbian."? I'm not sure if you're trying to accuse Republicans of spreading this lie as a valid sta
send them to El Salvador (Score:4, Funny)
"The U.S. is currently home to more than 18 million cancer survivors"
Time to call ICE, a real opportunity for the Trump administration.
Re: send them to El Salvador (Score:2)
(/s) Yup, they only cost money and contribute nothing. Only to postpone the inevitable. It is time to remove those bad genes from the pool anyway. Look at Biden!
Nah, even for Donald that would be a bridge too far.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
> "The U.S. is currently home to more than 18 million cancer survivors"
> Time to call ICE, a real opportunity for the Trump administration.
Come on dude, at least be funny in your digs at Orange Jesus.
Re: (Score:2)
RFK Jr. is already on the case.