by Vera Martinella
The results of a new large investigation indicate that, with the diagnosis at the first stage, after 12 months patients return to having the same life expectancy as those who have never been ill. Screening checks are essential
They are the most widespread cancers in the Italian population: breast cancer is the most frequent of all, with around 55,900 new cases diagnosed in 2023 (around 500 of which among males), followed by colorectal cancer with 50,500 new diagnoses.
The good news, which comes from just one study published in the scientific journal International Journal of Cancer, is that 99% of women with breast cancer and 92% of patients with colorectal cancer have a similar life expectancy to those who have not had the disease if the cancer is detected in an early stage. The results of this research have a double significance. On the one hand, they help to answer the questions that all people ask themselves when they receive an oncological diagnosis: “Will I recover?”, “When can I consider myself out of danger?”. On the other hand, they reiterate and demonstrate, with numbers in hand, the importance of undergoing screening checks to discover the presence of a neoplasm in the early stages, when it is small in size, without metastases and the chances of recovery are much higher.
Research and the chances of recovery
The survey, coordinated by the IRCCS Oncology Reference Center (CRO) of Aviano and the Azienda Zero of the Veneto Region, evaluated information from 31 Italian tumor registries and estimated numerous recovery indicators by disease stage after diagnosis of breast and colorectal cancer. «It emerged that, at the time of diagnosis, the probability of recovery for women with breast cancer goes from 99% for tumors discovered at the first stage (which represent over half of the diagnoses) to 36% when the disease presents in more advanced stages (about 10% of new cases per year). Similar differences emerged for people with colorectal cancer – explains Luigino Dal Maso, CRO researcher and study coordinator –. Among patients alive 10 years after being diagnosed with breast cancer, the risk of the disease returning is about 5%. Already 5 years after the diagnosis of colorectal cancer, the risk of death due to cancer becomes less than 3%, and becomes practically zero after 10 years.”
Who can consider themselves healed
Three and a half million Italians live after a cancer diagnosis, but among them only about one million can be considered cured because they have a “negligible” risk of dying from cancer and, concretely, a life expectancy that is the same as that of healthy people of the same sex and of the same age. Many scientific studies have been done in recent years to define the concept of healing (which is also at the center of the Law on the right to be forgotten, approved last December 2023) and there are very specific parameters shared at an international level that vary based on many factors, first of all the type of cancer in question and the time that has passed since diagnosis. The risk of death from cancer is highest in the first years after diagnosis and then progressively decreases. «The study just published shows us for the first time the recovery indicators by disease stage and provides crucial information for oncology, research and public health» comments Diego Serraino of the Aviano CRO.
The usefulness of screening
«Based on the results of the research, we estimate that there are around 900 thousand women living today after breast cancer, over 3% of all women living in Italy – says Stefano Guzzinati, manager of Azienda Zero of the Veneto Region and co-responsible for the study – often for many years after diagnosis. Our indicators were measured thanks to data collected by 31 cancer registries (covering half of the Italian population) on almost one million patients, starting from 1978 until 2017 and followed for at least 15 years.” There newly published research has been part of an active collaboration for over 15 years thanks to the support of the Italian Association for Cancer Research (Airc), the Italian Association of Cancer Registries (Airtum) and the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (Iss). The results reinforce what has already been demonstrated several times: carry out checks for early diagnosis (mammography, tests for the search for occult blood in the faeces and Pap tests or HPV-DNA tests), which are also offered free of charge by the NHS in our country for people in of age most at risk of getting sick, significantly reduces both the risk of developing cancer and dying from it.
How the risk of dying decreases over time
«The analyzes presented also show the number of years necessary for the risk of dying from cancer to become clinically negligible – comments Silvia Francisci, researcher at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità –. Overall, considering all stages of the disease, it is less than 10 years after diagnosis for women aged 45-64 with breast cancer and approximately 12 years if the disease occurs under the age of 45 and at 65-74 years. It is reduced to one year after diagnosis of first or second stage breast cancer and to an age of less than 65 years, while it exceeds 10 years in the case of more advanced stages. For patients with early stage colorectal cancer the healing time is one year, while it takes around 8 years for all other more advanced stages.” «The study is part of a line of research which recently showed that approximately 23.5 million Europeans, out of a population of 500 million inhabitants, live after a cancer diagnosis – adds Roberta De Angelis, researcher at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, coordinator of the European study -. The results obtained in Italy are similar to those that emerged in other countries of comparable socio-economic level and indicate that those who live long after cancer are a continuously increasing population in Europe, due to both aging and better survival.”
Right to be forgotten: the consequences for former patients
«For cancer patients, knowing the probability of being cured upon diagnosis and knowing that the vast majority of people diagnosed with early-stage cancer are destined to be cured in a few years represent very important information also regarding access to the right to ‘oncological oblivion just introduced into our system by Law 193/2023 – concludes Elisabetta Iannelli, General Secretary of the Italian Federation of Volunteer Associations in Oncology (Favo) -. The results of the study published in the International Journal of Cancer provide an important piece of information useful for patients to regain control of their lives and return to a normal condition. In particular, they are of great importance for women who until now have not been able to benefit from oncological oblivion in a short time (those who have had a first or second stage tumor considered cured one year after diagnosis). The implementing decrees provided for by the law on the right to be forgotten oncology will have to take this study into account in order to provide recovery times that are much shorter than the 10 years from the end of the therapies, as currently established by the law”.
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April 17, 2024
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