The Advanced Metastatic Brain Cancer Survival Rate Overview

The Advanced Metastatic Brain Cancer Survival Rate Overview
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What is the Difference Between Advanced Metastatic Brain Cancer and Typical Brain Cancer?

Before we consider the advanced metastatic brain cancer survival rate, let us define the difference between this type of brain cancer and typical brain cancer.

Metastatic is a medical term that comes from the word metastasis. The definition is the spreading of a disease from one part of the body to another. Therefore, the difference between these two types of brain cancer is that the metastatic brain cancer spread from another cancerous location in the body. Typical brain cancer originated in the brain itself.

Determining Factors of Incidence

There are several determining factors to consider when discussing the incident rates of this type of cancer. It is important to remember that metastatic brain cancer originated in another part of the body. If it originated from the lung then you have two locations that have been diagnosed with cancer. Therefore, you have two locations that are of concern.

The stage of, and location of the original cancer location is a determining factor of possibility of incident rate. The rate of growth of the cancer cells are also a contributing factor of the risk of incident. The overall general health and age of the individual is also considered.

The location of, and size of the cancerous cells involved in metastatic brain cancer cannot be overlooked when considering the rate of survival. Complications and risk are considered when treatment is involved. How the cancer is affecting the person’s body also has been determined usually does not have an impact of survival rates.

Survival Rates

There are four locations that are the most origins of advanced brain cancer; they are the GI tract, skin, breast and lung.

Research conducted at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York concluded that after the metastasis cells were detected in the brain, that the overall survival rate can be anywhere from 3 months to 24 months.

They also concluded that although this type of cancer is more common in males that gender does not determine the survival rate. They also concluded that most people who are diagnosed with advanced metastatic brain cancer are known to do poorly despite the therapy efforts used. This is because that the use of chemotherapeutic agents usually penetrate the brain poorly and other treatments that are often attempted, such as surgery have shown did not lessen the chance of recurrence.

It is estimated that over 100,000 people are diagnosed per year in the United States and that 60 percent of them are 50-70 years of age. This is about 24-45 percent of the cancer population of all cancers. Metastatic brain cancer accounts for 20 percent of all cancer deaths annually.

On a Special Note

It is important to remember that everyday there is ongoing research in hopes to help individuals fight all types of cancers. If a person were diagnosed with advanced metastatic brain cancer, the best person to learn of any such progress would be a physician. Another good place to seek further information would be the American Cancer Society.

References

Medical Dictionary

MedicineNet.com Charles David Stoppler, MD, PhD

MD Anderson Cancer Center

Emedicine from WebMD