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Survival rates are often used by doctors as a standard way of discussing a person's prognosis (outlook). Some parents may want to know the survival statistics for children in similar situations, while others may not find the numbers helpful, or may even not want to know them. Whether or not you want to read about the survival statistics below for brain and spinal cord tumors is up to you.

The 5-year survival rate refers to the percentage of children who live at least 5 years after their cancer is diagnosed. Of course, many children live much longer than 5 years (and some are cured).

In order to get 5-year survival rates, doctors have to look at children who were treated at least 5 years ago. Improvements in treatment since then may result in a more favorable outlook for children now being diagnosed with brain tumors.

Survival rates are often based on previous outcomes of large numbers of children who had the disease, but they cannot predict what will happen in any particular child's case. Knowing the type of a child's brain tumor is important in estimating their outlook. But many other factors may also affect a child's outlook, such as the location and extent of the tumor and how well it responds to treatment. Even when taking these other factors into account, survival rates are at best rough estimates. Your child's doctor can tell you if the numbers below may apply, as he or she is familiar with the aspects of your child's particular situation.

The numbers below come from the Central Brain Tumor Registry of the United States (CBTRUS) and are based on children aged 19 or younger who were treated between 1995 and 2006. There are some important points to note about these numbers:

• These numbers are for some of the more common types of tumors. Numbers are not readily available for all types of tumors that occur in children, often because they are rare or are hard to classify.
• In some cases, the numbers include a wide range of different types of tumors that may have different outlooks. For example, the numbers for PNETs include medulloblastomas, which tend to have a better outlook than pineoblastomas or PNETs in other parts of the brain.