Cancer patient survival: Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program, 1973-79
Ries, L.G.; Pollack, E.S.; Young, J.L.
Journal of the National Cancer Institute 70(4): 693-707
1983
ISSN/ISBN: 0027-8874 PMID: 6572758 Document Number: 214054
Data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program of the National Cancer Institute were used in the evaluation of cancer patients survival experience for almost 10% of the USA population. This 1st report contains actuarial (life table) survival analysis on 368,263 patients with first primary cancer diagnosed in 1973-1979 from 9 SEER areas: the entire States of Connecticut, Iowa, New Mexico, Utah, and Hawaii and the metropolitan areas of Atlanta, Detroit, San Francisco, and Seattle. Both observed and relative survival rates were shown for whites and blacks, sex, age, primary site and time period (each yr, 1973-1978). The largest racial difference in survival was for cancer of the corpus uteri: 87% 5-yr relative survival rate for white females vs. only 54% for black females. Survival rates varied considerably by primary site. For most sites, as age increased the relative and observed survival rates decreased. Analysis of relative survival rates by each year of diagnosis, 1973-78, and for each year following diagnosis suggested increasing rates for cancers of the colon, lung, and prostate gland, whereas there were no definite increases for cancers of the female breast and corpus uteri. A dramatic increase in survival from acute lymphocytic leukemia was found for children under 15 yr of age, with the 4 yr relative survival rate increasing from 51% among those diagnosed in 1973-1975 to 65% for those diagnosed in 1976-1978.