More Living Longer With Advanced Co...( Study found dramatic gains in both sh...),Health

Study found dramatic gains in both short-term and long-term survival rates

WEDNESDAY, May 27 (HealthDay News) -- Over the past 15 years, the average survival rate for patients battling advanced colorectal cancer has increased dramatically, new research indicates, due in equal measure to the advent of new, powerful drugs and more frequent surgical interventions.

While in the early- to mid-1990s, the average patient would have survived about 14 months post-diagnosis, by the late 90s that figure began a rapid ascent, the study revealed. The result: The average life expectancy for a newly diagnosed patient today has doubled, to just shy of 30 months post-diagnosis.

Longer-range survival prospects also improved. Where fewer than 10 percent of patients could expect to live five years post-diagnosis in the early to mid-90s, a projected 30 percent of patients can now look forward to that prospect.

"What we're seeing is that over the past several years both an increase in the use of new chemotherapies and a more aggressive use of surgery for removing cancer that has spread to the liver has resulted in very significant increases in longer survival for patients," said study lead author Dr. Scott Kopetz, an assistant professor in the department of gastrointestinal medical oncology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. "And this increase is of a magnitude that is rarely seen in the treatment of cancer," he said.

The findings appear in the May 26 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Colorectal cancer is the fourth most common cancer in the United States, with nearly 150,000 patients diagnosed in 2008 alone, according to the American Cancer Society.

In their effort to gauge patient survival trends, the authors first reviewed data regarding nearly 2,500 colorectal cancer patients who had treatments at either M.D. Anderson or at the Mayo Clinic between 1990
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