What is gastric cancer and what is the survival rate?
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Gastric cancer is cancer of the stomach. The survival rate will depend on the
- Exact type of stomach cancer
- Stage of the cancer
- Grade of the cancer
There are different types of stomach cancer. Most stomach cancers are ' adenocarcinomas'. This is cancer that starts in the glandular tissue lining the stomach. There are other rarer types such as lymphoma of the stomach.
The stage of a cancer is the size of the tumour and whether it has spread. A stage one cancer is the earliest and will have a better outlook than a more advanced cancer.
The grade of the cancer is decided by what the cells look like under the microscope. The more like normal cells the cancer cells look, the lower the grade. The more abnormal the cells appear, the higher the grade. Low grade cancers tend to grow more slowly and are less likely to spread than high grade cancers.
Overall survival statistics can't tell you exactly what will happen in your case. The overall 5 year survival statistics for stomach cancer are about 20%. That means that approximately 1 in 5 of all the people diagnosed with stomach cancer are still alive 5 years later. But that figure hides the fact that many people have advanced stomach cancer when they are diagnosed. If the cancer is localised, with no cancer in the lymph nodes, then over 80% of people live for at least five years and two thirds of these will be cured. The statistics do not tell you what treatment those people had, or how their cancer responded to that treatment. So it is hard to apply statistics to individual patients.
It is best to talk to your own doctor about this. You could print this page and take it with you as a basis for your discussion. There is a page with more detail about stomach cancer statistics and outlook in the main stomach cancer section.
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