The Five Deadliest Cancers1

With the recent passing of senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy, the spotlight is again on brain cancer--one of the deadliest cancers. The survival rate for the most common form is very low, especially past the age of 55 where it's just one percent.

Brain and spinal column cancers are extremely rare--according to the American Cancer Society (ACS). They will account for about 1.5 percent of all cancer-related deaths in 2009. The average person has a less than one percent chance of getting it in their lifetime; compare that to a woman's chance of developing breast cancer (about 12 percent), or lung cancer (just over 6 percent).

With that in perspective, data from both the ACS and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) reveals there are other cancers that are far more deadly to the population as a whole.

1. Pancreatic cancer. Although the risk for both men and women of developing cancer is 1 in 76, this is one of the deadliest cancers. One out of five people will live for at least a year after diagnosis, and fewer than four percent will live past five years. According to the ACS, surgery for pancreatic cancer is one of the most difficult to perform.

2. Lung cancer. Lung cancer takes top position among the deadliest cancers. It's the leading cause of cancer-related death in men and women. Most likely to be diagnosed in people 45 years or older, there's a one in 16 chance that a woman will get lung cancer; it's one in 13 for men, reports the ACS.

3. Breast cancer. Breast cancer comes in second behind lung cancer as a leading cause of death for women. A woman has a three percent chance of dying from breast cancer, according to the ACS.

4. Ovarian cancer. The overall five-year survival rate for ovarian cancer is 45.9 percent: it's 45.8 percent for white women and 37.4 percent for African-American women, reports the NCI. The average age at diagnosis is 63 years old.

5. Colorectal cancer. For men and women separately, this is the third leading cause of cancer-related death in the U.S. However, when the sexes are combined, it's the second leading cause of death, states the ACS. A woman has a 5.3 percent likelihood of dying from colorectal cancer.

source of info: newsletter written by Andrea Neblett of Quality Health