Study shows 70 percent of cancer patients now survive for at least five years
Cancer survival rates have increased significantly in recent decades. But physicians warn that cuts to federal funding could threaten that progress.
CT scan showing a cancerous tumor (Correct) and a clean scan after treatment (left). Survival rates for various types of cancer have increased in recent decades.
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
On Tuesday, the American Cancer Society (ACS) released this annual report on cancer statistics in the US, and it offered a rare good news: The proportion of people living at least five years after a cancer diagnosis reached a record high.
The report found that, among all cancer patients diagnosed in the US between 2015 and 2021, the five-year survival rate was 70 percent, relative to those who did not have cancer. This is the highest rate ever recorded by ACS. Researchers attributed this benefit to better screening and treatment as well as reductions in smoking.
“Seven out of 10 people now survive cancer for five years or longer, compared with only half in the mid-70s,” Rebecca Siegel, ACS’ senior scientific director for surveillance research, said in a statement. “This astonishing victory is largely the result of decades of cancer research that provided physicians with the tools to treat the disease more effectively, transforming many cancers from a death sentence to a chronic disease.”
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The greatest improvements in survival rates were seen in some of the deadliest cancers. For example, the five-year relative survival rate for myeloma (a type of cancer that affects the bone marrow) has nearly doubled between the 1990s and now, from 32 to 62 percent, while the survival rate for liver cancer has more than tripled, from 7 to 22 percent.
This is partly due to a greater understanding of cancer genomes and the development of targeted therapies against cancer mutations, said ACS Chief Scientific Officer William Dahut in a press call with reporters on Monday before the report was released. “People are living with metastatic cancer for years and years,” he said. “It’s really been driven by research.”
But the whole picture is not entirely rosy. The report estimates that, in 2026, more than two million people in the US will be diagnosed with new cases of cancer and more than 625,000 will die from the disease. The report’s authors write that lung cancer is expected to cause the most deaths – more than twice as many as any other cancer. (This is especially sad because, e.g. scientific American The report notes that many of the people most at risk for lung cancer never get tested.)
The authors warn that cuts to federal funding for cancer-related research threaten the nation’s progress. In just the first three months of 2025, Senate Minority Report EstimatesNational Cancer Institute grant funding was down 31 percent from the previous year.
“Although decades of scientific investment have translated into longer lives for most people with cancer,” the authors of the new ACS report conclude, “pending federal cuts to health insurance and cancer research will inevitably reduce access to life-saving drugs and halt progress at a time when the incidence of many common cancers is increasing.”
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