Lemonly Improvements in Cancer Survival Rates Since 1995

Cancer touches everyone, but long-term trends show reason for optimism. We dug into the data from the American Cancer Society on five-year relative survival rates across all types of cancer from 1995 to 2020.

In the past 30 years, the outlook has improved for patients with these 17 types of cancer, including the largest improvements in myeloma, leukemia, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. And across all cancers, overall survivability has improved from 63% to 69%. Check out more in our infographic below.

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Sources: American Cancer Society

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Improvements in cancer survivability since 1995

17 types of cancer saw improvements in survivability in the U.S. from 1995 to 2020. Across all cancers, overall survivability improved from 63% to 69%.

Cancer type	1995–1997	2005–2011	2010–2016	2014–2020
All cancers (overall)	63	69	67	69
Brain & other nervous system	32	35	33	33
Breast (female)	87	91	90	91
Colon & rectum	61	66	65	64
Esophagus	13	20	20	22
Hodgkin lymphoma	84	88	87	89
Kidney & renal pelvis	62	74	75	78
Larynx	66	63	61	62
Leukemia	48	62	64	67
Liver & intrahepatic bile duct	7	18	20	22
Lung & bronchitis	15	18	21	27
Melanoma of the skin	91	93	93	94
Myeloma (multiple myeloma)	32	49	54	61
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma	56	72	73	74
Oral cavity & pharynx	58	66	66	69
Ovary	43	46	49	51
Pancreas	4	8	10	13
Prostate	97	99	98	97
Stomach	22	30	32	36
Testis (testicular)	96	97	95	95
Thyroid	95	98	98	98
Urinary bladder	80	79	77	78
Uterine cervix (cervical)	73	69	66	67
Uterine corpus (endometrial)	84	83	81	81