Testicular cancer survival rates

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. If you decide that you don’t want to know them, stop reading here and skip to the next section.

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

Five-year relative survival rates assume that some people will die of other causes and compare the observed survival with that expected for people without the cancer. This is a better way to see the impact of the cancer on survival.

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

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 may affect a person's outlook, such as your age and how well the cancer responds to treatment. 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 survival statistics below come from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database, and are based on patients who were diagnosed with testicular cancer between 2001 and 2007. The SEER database does not divide survival rates by AJCC stage. Instead, this database divides cancers into the summary stages: localized, regional, and distant. Localized means that the cancer is only growing in the testicle. This includes most AJCC stage I tumors (stage 0 cancers are not included in these statistics). Regional means that the cancer has spread to nearby lymph nodes or tissues. This includes T4 tumors and cancers with lymph node spread (all stage II cancers and some stage IIIB and IIIC cancers). Distant means that the cancer has spread to organs or lymph nodes away from the tumor, such as all M1 cancers (which can be stage IIIA, IIIB, or IIIC).

The 5-year relative survival rate for all men with this cancer is 95%. More than 200,000 men in the United States have survived testicular cancer.

For more advanced testicular cancer (stages besides IA and IB), statistics exist for survival by risk group. These look at overall survival, and so don’t take into account deaths from other causes.

These survival rates are taken from a study of patients treated more than 25 years ago. Survival is likely to be better today.