Brain Cancer Statistics: What Do They All Mean?

Statistics are more than just a bunch of numbers; they are used in a variety of situations to give the most likely outcome from an occurrence. Brain cancer statistics are used as a benchmark for what a patient can expect after being diagnosed. There are several terms that are used in statistics like incidence, prevalence, mortality; these will be explained in this article.

It should be remembered that statistics take some time to gather and calculate, so the statistics being used today are, of necessity, several years old. With advances in diagnosis and treatment of brain cancer, the reality could be stronger than statistics suggest. Also, statistics take into account all cases of brain cancer; they are not necessarily indicative of your personal illness.

Some of the terminology used in statistics includes:

Prevalence – this refers to estimated number of people who are managing their brain cancer at any one time.

Incidence – this refers to the annual rate of diagnosis; the number of newly diagnosed cases of brain cancer in a certain year.

Median – this is another word for average; it refers to the half-way point in a group of statistics, with 50% on one side of the 'median' and 50% on the other.

5 years survival rate – this refers to the percentage of patients who were alive five years after they were first diagnosed.

Relative survival rate – this is the survival of people with brain cancer compared to the general population.

Mortality – this refers to the number of patients who have died from a particular type of brain cancer in a certain year.

Brain cancer risk – usually refers to a 'lifetime risk', the chances of you, as an individual, getting brain cancer in your lifetime.

The American Cancer Society found that between 1998 and 2002, the median age when brain cancer was diagnosed was 55 years and the median age of death in brain cancer patients was 64 years of age. In 2002, the incidence of brain cancer in the US was 17,000 or 1 person in 16,000 citizens. This means that each year, 17,000 people are diagnosed with a brain tumor. Of these, 10,000 were men and 7,000 were women.

In 1999, 12,765 people, who had brain cancer, died. The greatest percentage of these was in the 65 to 74 years age bracket, followed by the 55 to 64 years bracket. The median age was 64 years. Of these, 12.8% of men were African American and 6.8% of women were Asian/Pacific Islander. The average number of life years lost to brain cancer is 24.6 years.

Survival rate statistics for brain cancer patients can be calculated in different ways. To be able to estimate the effects of cancer on the population, the relative survival method is used. For the period of 1992 to 2001, the relative 5 years brain cancer survival rate was 33.3%, with African American men and women making up a greater percentage than Caucasian women and men.

Based on the statistics gathered during the period 2000 – 2002, 0.58% of people will be diagnosed with brain cancer at some stage of their life. This represents 1 in 174 people. 0.25% of men will be diagnosed with brain cancer between the age of 50 and 70 years, while just 0.16% of women in the same age group, will be diagnosed.

The prevalence of brain cancer on January 1, 2002, was 105,960 people with a history of brain cancer. Of these, 56,865 were men and 49,095 were women. These numbers included all people, still living, who had been diagnosed with brain cancer.