The report, released last month by the American Association for Cancer Research1 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, finds that 71% of people with cancer in the United States will live for at least five years after diagnosis, up from 49% in the late 1970s (see 'Uneven progress'). Among the success stories, gains in lung cancer survival rates are particularly striking, says Rebecca Siegel, a cancer epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society in Atlanta, Georgia. Lung cancer is one of the world's biggest causes of death, and on average, only 13% of people diagnosed with lung cancer between 1975 and 1979 lived for another five years. Between 2016 and 2022, that number reached 29%. 'It's still really low, but it's such an improvement,' says Siegel. That jump in survival rates comes from improvements in surgical techniques and radiation treatments, as well as new medicines that either unleash the immune system against tumours or target cancer cells bearing specific mutations. 'It's very...
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