Leukemia Survival Rates

Cancer survival rates are typically discussed in terms of 5-year relative survival, which means the proportion of patients alive five years after their diagnosis. Keep in mind that statistics like these are based on large groups of people and cannot predict what might happen with an individual patient.

In addition, the most current national data is from patients diagnosed between 2016 and 2020, which doesn’t reflect the impact of latest treatment advances.

In the United States, overall, 5-year survival among people diagnosed with leukemia is 65%. However, these statistics vary greatly according to the specific subtype of disease:

Learn more leukemia statistics from the National Cancer Institute.

Other factors that contribute to prognosis

Many different factors can affect the outcomes of chemotherapy for treatment of leukemia and other blood cancers such as myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) as well as other blood disorders. Some of these are patient related and others are specific to the cancer. These may include:

  • Your age
  • Other medical conditions you may have
  • Your activity level
  • Gene mutations or DNA changes in the cancer cells may predict response to certain chemotherapy regimens
  • Aggressiveness of the cancer
  • Complications from the cancer or treatment

What Roswell Park does to maximize your survival

Most importantly, the care for each patient on our service is highly personalized for each patient’s needs. We have detailed discussions with every patient regarding their specific goals and priorities prior to initiating therapy. All of this ensures that patients achieve the best outcomes for their cancer care.

We start by providing the most accurate diagnosis of blood cancer and blood disorder as quickly as possible. We have a dedicated core of hematopathologists who are specifically trained to make these difficult and sometimes challenging diagnoses as well as state-of-the-art cytogenetic, flow cytometry, and molecular diagnostic laboratories here on site in our institute to process and provide results within days.

Our dedicated team of physicians, advanced care providers, nurses, clinical research staff, pharmacists, case managers, social workers and therapists are focused on caring only for patients with these diagnoses.

We provide care in a dedicated, immune protected inpatient hospital unit as well as in a specialized outpatient clinic. Patients have access to an array of the most groundbreaking new drugs and technologies here in Buffalo.

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