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Stages and Survival Rates

The overall average of five-year survival rate for women who contract breast cancer is around 86% for those whose disease has not metastasized. That means, 86% of the women who contract it survive for at least five years. But even that fairly high number is just an overall average. The numbers are even better for some categories. Those numbers depend on the stage at which the cancer is detected and treated.

Breast cancer, like others, develops in stages. Those stages are lettered and numbered according a now-standard classification of T, N and M and a scale from 0-IV. T indicates tumor size, N spread to lymph nodes and M distant metastasis. Metastasis is spreading of a primary tumor to secondary areas forming tumors of the same type.

TX tumors are those that can not yet be assessed at all. T0 designates a situation in which there's no evidence of the cancer at all. Tis indicates one that may be of type DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ), LCIS (lobular carcinoma in situ) or Paget's disease (a rare form in which the nipple and/or areola is cancerous).

Stage 0 cancers are the earliest of all. In Stage I, tumors are less than 2cm in size and have not spread. Stage II indicates a tumor that is 2-5cm in diameter, and Stage III one larger than 5cm. A Stage IV tumor has become attached to the chest wall and spread to the lymph nodes.

Fortunately, thanks to improved diagnosis and treatment methods, many more breast cancers are caught and eliminated in the very early stages.

For those women and men treated in Stage 0 or I the average five year survival rates are roughly 100%. Yes, men get breast cancer too, albeit at about 1/133 the rate of women. Even Stage II sufferers have a survival rate between 81%-92%. It isn't until Stage III that the rate dips to 67%. For Stage IV it is approximately 20%.

Of course, many women and men do beat the odds. Even many of those in later stages survive significantly longer than seven years. As diagnostic techniques and treatment methods continue to improve the numbers do as well. As medical knowledge advances, more and more on the lower end of the category move into the upper reaches.

One new diagnostic technique, for example, is QM-MSP (quantitative multiplex methylation-specific PCR). Discovered in 2001, it is a chemical test that uses fluid from the breast. By analyzing chemical tags on certain genes, it's possible to detect cancer clumps as small as 50 cells with 86% reliability. As it and other innovative methods move into the mainstream, 'early' detection becomes 'earliest possible' detection. That greatly improves the odds of successful treatment.

Treatments are improving, too. Hormone therapy, targeted radiation, molecule specific drugs and other contemporary techniques constitute the cutting edge, where once there was only cutting.

Though never pleasant, and still a serious condition, breast cancer no longer has to be life threatening or even permanently scarring.