ABSTRACT
Cancer survival rates have shown a steady and remarkable improvement over the past four decades. While only one in five individuals with cancer was expected to survive 5 or more years from diagnosis in 1930, presently one in two persons is expected to survive for greater than 5 years.1,2
Significant improvements in survival have been evidenced in breast, ovarian, prostate, and colorectal cancer as well as hematologic malignancies including Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), and leukemia,2
with survival rates as high as 80 percent reported after HL and NHL.2 As a result of these improvements, in January 2004 there were an estimated 10.8 million cancer survivors in the United States of America (USA).3 Sixty percent of these survivors are over 60 years of age. While most of them are less than 5 years from their diagnosis, 14 percent have lived for more than 20 years from their initial diagnosis.
