Deadliest Cancers

The dread and fear that can come with a cancer diagnosis have their roots in its killer nature.

Cancer is the second most common cause of death in Americans after heart disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Even when diagnosed early and attacked with the latest treatments, cancer still has the power to kill.

According to World Health Organization, the three cancers that kill the most people are lung cancer, colorectal cancer, and liver cancer. But those aren’t the deadliest cancers.

The number of people cancer kills each year depends on two factors:

1. How many people have it (cancer incidence)
2. What percentage of people diagnosed with cancer survive.

The deadliest cancers are those with the lowest survival rates.

Here’s a look at the 10 deadliest cancers in the United States.

Pancreatic cancer, 5-year relative survival: 11.5%

Pancreatic cancer begins in the tissues of the pancreas, which aids digestion.

Digestive system cancers in general are quite deadly, with fewer than half of patients surviving five years, and pancreatic cancer is the deadliest of the bunch.

Most pancreatic cancers are exocrine cancers, which means cancer arises in the cells that make digestive enzymes.

Less commonly, cancers arise in the pancreas’s endocrine cells, which make hormones such as insulin; these are called pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (NETs), or islet cell tumors.

Depending on how far it has spread, doctors may treat pancreatic cancers with surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy.

Other treatments might include immunotherapy (which ramps up the immune system to attack cancer) or targeted therapies (drugs that target molecules specific to cancer cells).

Mesothelioma, 5-year relative survival: 12%

The mesothelium is a layer of cells that line certain cavities of the body and surround the internal organs.

Mesothelioma is a cancer of these cells. Three out of four mesotheliomas develop in the mesothelium that surrounds the lungs, which is called the pleura.

This type of cancer is called pleural mesothelioma.

The next most common type of mesothelioma forms in the peritoneum, the tissue that lines the abdomen and surrounds many abdominal organs, such as the stomach and the liver; this cancer type is called peritoneal mesothelioma.

Asbestos exposure, a mineral fiber once commonly used in insulation, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is the primary cause of malignant pleural mesotheliomas and can contribute to the development of peritoneal mesothelioma.

Treatment for mesothelioma depends on how far it has progressed but may include surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, targeted therapies, and immunotherapies.

Gallbladder cancer, 5-year relative survival: 19.4%

This digestive system cancer begins in the gallbladder. The gallbladder, located underneath the liver, concentrates and stores bile, which is a substance made by the liver that aids in digestion.

Gallstones, which are small, hard deposits of cholesterol and other materials in the gallbladder, significantly increase the risk of developing gallbladder cancer.

Treatments, which depend on how far cancer has progressed when it is diagnosed, include surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation.

Patients can also consider participating in clinical trials of immunotherapies and targeted therapies for gallbladder cancer.

Esophageal cancer, 5-year relative survival: 20.6%

The esophagus is the muscular tube that transports food from the throat into the stomach.

Risk factors for esophageal cancer include older age, being male, smoking, drinking alcohol, and having acid reflux, in which stomach acid comes up into the lower esophagus.

Treatments, which depend on how far the cancer has progressed, may include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, immunotherapy or targeted therapies.

Liver and intrahepatic bile duct cancer, 5-year relative survival: 20.8%

Liver cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer worldwide.

The most significant risk factor for liver cancer is chronic hepatitis B or hepatitis C infections.

Both of these infections are transmitted through bodily fluids, including blood and semen.

A closely related cancer is intrahepatic bile duct cancer, which occurs in the ducts that carry bile from the liver and gallbladder to the small intestine, where the bile helps digest fats from food

The gallbladder is a small organ nestled next to the liver that produces bile, for aiding digestion.

Lung and bronchial cancer, 5-year survival: 22.9%

Lung and bronchial cancer kill the most people worldwide and in the U.S. every year.

Smoking and the use of tobacco products are the major causes of it.

There are two major types: non-small cell lung cancer, which is the most common, and small cell lung cancer, which spreads more quickly.

The best thing patients who smoke can do to prepare for treatment is to quit smoking.

Treatments for lung cancer include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, immunotherapies, and, in the case of non-small cell lung cancer, targeted therapies.

Pleural cancer, 5-year survival: 22%

Pleural cancer occurs in the pleural cavity, the space within the chest cavity but outside the lungs, or in the layer of cells that surrounds the lungs.

But not all pleural cancers are mesotheliomas. Many of these non-mesothelioma pleural cancers are “tissues of unknown histology,” meaning that doctors are unsure what tissue or cell type they are.

Treatments for pleural cancer may include surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation.

Acute monocytic leukemia, 5-year relative survival: 24.8%

Acute monocytic leukemia is a subtype of a type of leukemia called acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

It develops in blood precursor cells that are on their way to becoming immune-system cells called monocytes.

Monocytes are a major part of the innate immune system (the branch of the immune system that doesn’t involve the development of antibodies but instead recognizes common features of pathogens and immediately attacks.

Treatments for acute monocytic leukemia may include chemotherapy, stem cell transplantation, or targeted therapies.

Brain cancer, 5-year relative survival: 32.5%

In adults, brain tumors rarely begin in the brain.

More often, they spread there from other cancers. But brain cancers that are caused by cancers that originated somewhere else in the body aren’t included in brain cancer survival statistics because cancers are categorized according to their site of origin.

If a person dies of cancer that originated in the lung and metastasized to the brain, for example, that person’s case would affect lung cancer survival statistics, not survival statistics for brain cancer.

Treatment for brain tumors depends on the tumor type and how much cancer has grown by the time it’s diagnosed and might include surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, immunotherapies, or targeted therapies.

Acute myeloid leukemia, 5-year relative survival: 30.5%

Leukemias develop from stem cells in the bone marrow, which differentiate into different blood-cell precursors and eventually blood cells.

Leukemia occurs when blood cell development is halted and the cells become cancerous. Leukemias are classified according to the stage at which blood cells and precursors halt their development and become cancerous.

Acute myeloid leukemia refers to any cancer that develops in myeloid cells (as opposed to in lymphoid cells), which are blood precursor cells that have the potential to develop into red blood cells, some types of white blood cells, and platelets.

In AML, rather than developing into these blood cell types, stem cells get stuck at an immature stage and are called “blast cells.

There are no or very few blast cells in healthy blood. Having too many blast cells and too few healthy blood cells causes many symptoms of AML, including frequent infections, bruising, and bleeding easily.

Treatment approaches may include chemotherapy, a stem cell transplant, or targeted therapies.

Why is there no cure?

The decrease in cancer death rates to reductions in smoking, earlier detection, and better treatments for some cancers.

There has been a lot of progress in the fight against cancer.

Yet despite all that progress, a cure for cancer remains elusive for many reasons.

1. The first issue is that cancer is not just one disease that could be eradicated with one cure. Instead, it’s hundreds of diseases.

2. We would need hundreds of different types of cures to cure all cancer.

3. Another reason it’s hard to cure cancer is that the bar for cancer being cured is incredibly high.

Cancer is cured if there are no traces of it in the body and it will never come back or is not expected to come back.

But even when all traces of cancer have disappeared, there’s no way of knowing with certainty that it won’t return.

There is never a guarantee that cancer will not recur because cancer cells can hide in the body undetected by a person’s immune system.

The longer a person is in remission, meaning that their signs and symptoms of cancer are reduced or absent, the less likely it is that cancer will come back.

4. Finally, just because there are effective treatments for a particular cancer doesn’t mean that the treatment will work for everyone.

Each person’s cancer has a unique molecular signature and responds differently to treatment compared to someone else with the same type of cancer.

If you experience or develop any symptoms of any type of cancer, you need to immediately see your doctor for a complete examination, so an accurate diagnosis can be made and the appropriate treatment started.