Survival Rates for Adrenal Cancer
Adrenal cancer is a rare, aggressive cancer that affects about 200 people in the United States every year. If it’s diagnosed early, a cure is possible. But it’s most often diagnosed in a later stage, when survival rates are low.
Adrenal cancer is a rare cancer that can occur at any age. If doctors find the cancer early, there is a good chance for a cure. However, adrenal cancer is often not discovered until its later stages, when it has spread to other areas of the body.
Survival rates for adrenal cancer depend on several factors, including the stage at diagnosis and the cancer’s response to treatment.
In this article, we take a look at survival rates for all stages of adrenal cancer, as well as the factors that influence those survival rates.
Fast facts about adrenal cancer
- You have two adrenal glands in your body: one on top of each kidney.
- Your adrenal glands make the hormones cortisol, aldosterone, adrenaline, and noradrenaline. They also make hormones your body uses to create sex hormones (estrogen and testosterone).
- Adrenal cancer is very rare, likely affecting only around 200 people in the United States each year.
- The average onset age of adrenal cancer is around 46 years, but it can affect people of all ages.
- Up to 15% of adrenal cancers may be caused by a genetic irregularity, but this is more common in children.
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Survival rates for adrenal cancer depend on the stage at diagnosis. Because adrenal cancer is often diagnosed in the later stages, the overall 5-year relative survival rate is low.
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However, many factors influence the survival rates for adrenal cancer, and the survival rates are much higher for adrenal cancer that has not yet spread.
The American Cancer Society uses statistics from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program to track relative survival rates. This database groups cancer into three categories based on how far it has spread:
- Localized: Cancer has not spread beyond the adrenal gland.
- Regional: Cancer has spread from the adrenal gland to nearby lymph nodes or other structures.
- Distant: Cancer has spread to further areas of the body, such as the lungs or liver.
Based on these categories, here are the 5-year relative survival rates for adrenal cancer in the United States between 2012 and 2018:
| Cancer stage | Survival rate |
|---|---|
| localized | 73% |
| regional | 53% |
| distant | 38% |
| all SEER stages combined | 50% |
Keep in mind that these numbers apply only to the stage of the cancer when it was first diagnosed. They do not account for individual factors such as age, overall health, and response to treatment.
What is a relative survival rate?
A relative survival rate gives you an idea of how long someone with a specific condition may live beyond their diagnosis compared with someone without the condition.
For example, a 5-year relative survival rate of 73% means that someone with that condition is 73% as likely to live for 5 years as someone without the condition.
Many factors will influence a relative survival rate, such as the cancer stage at diagnosis, a person’s overall health, and how well the cancer responds to treatment.
Often, people who receive a cancer diagnosis today will have a better outlook than these numbers show. This is due to ongoing improvements in the treatment and understanding of cancer.
