Survival rates by stage

Survival rates are often used by doctors as a standard way of discussing a person's prognosis (outlook). Some patients with cancer may want to know the survival statistics for people in similar situations, while others may not find the numbers helpful, or may even not want to know them.

Median survival refers to the time it took for half of the patients to die. By definition, half the patients lived longer than the median survival. It is important to remember that the median is just a kind of average used by researchers. No one is "average" and many people have much better outcomes than the median.

Survival rates are often based on previous outcomes of large numbers of people who had the disease, but they cannot predict what will happen in any particular person's case. Many other factors can affect a person's outlook, such as those discussed in the next section. Your doctor can tell you how the numbers below may apply to you, as he or she is familiar with the aspects of your particular situation.

The numbers below are the approximate overall median survival for the International Staging System stages. These times are measured from the point that treatment, usually chemotherapy, first started. Many patients, such as those with indolent or smoldering myeloma, have a good deal of time after diagnosis before treatment is started. Also, these patients were treated anywhere from 5 to 25 years ago. Treatment since then has improved considerably and modern results are likely to be better.