Survival Rates for Vaginal Cancer

Survival rates are a way to measure how many people survive a certain type of cancer over time. They can’t tell you exactly what will happen with any one person, but they might help give you a better understanding of what to expect.

What is a 5-year relative survival rate?

A relative survival rate compares people with the same type and stage of vaginal cancer to people in the overall population.

For example, if the 5-year relative survival rate for a specific stage of vaginal cancer is 80%, it means that people who have that cancer are, on average, about 80% as likely as people who don’t have that cancer to live for at least 5 years after being diagnosed.

Where do these numbers come from?

The American Cancer Society relies on information from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database, maintained by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), to provide survival statistics for different types of cancer.

The SEER database tracks 5-year relative survival rates for vaginal cancer in the United States, based on how far the cancer has spread. The SEER database, however, does not group cancers by FIGO or AJCC TNM stages (stage I, stage II, stage III, etc.). Instead, it groups cancers into localized, regional, and distant stages:

• Localized: The cancer is limited to the vaginal wall.
• Regional: The cancer has spread through the vaginal wall to nearby structures or lymph nodes.
• Distant: The cancer has spread to distant parts of the body such as the lungs, liver, or bones.

5-year relative survival rates for vaginal cancer

These numbers are based on women diagnosed with vaginal cancer between 2015 and 2021.

SEER* Stage	5-Year Relative Survival Rate
Localized	76%
Regional	59%
Distant	24%
All SEER stages combined	55%

*SEER = Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results

Understanding the numbers

People being diagnosed with vaginal cancer today might have a better outlook than these numbers show. Treatments improve over time, and these numbers are based on people who were diagnosed and treated at least 5 years ago.

These numbers apply only to the stage of the cancer when it is first diagnosed. They do not apply later on if the cancer grows, spreads, or comes back after treatment.

These numbers don’t take everything into account. Other factors can affect your outlook, such as your age and overall health, where the cancer started, the type of vaginal cancer, and how well the cancer responds.