Time-to-cure and cure proportion in solid cancers in France. A population based study.

Background: In cancer care, the cure proportion (P) and time-to-cure (TTC) are important indicators for practitioners, patients, and healthcare policy makers. The recent definition of TTC as the time at which the probability of belonging to the cured group reaches 95% was used for the first time.

Methods: The data stem from the common database of French cancer registries including 335,358 solid tumours diagnosed between 1995 and 2009 at 27 sites. P and TTC were estimated through a flexible parametric net survival cure model for each cancer site, sex, and age at diagnosis with acceptable assumption of cure (excess mortality rate ≤0.05).

Results: TTC was ≤5 years and P was >80% for skin melanoma and thyroid and testis cancers. It was 0 for testis cancer in men <55 and for thyroid cancer in men <45 and women <65. TTC was between 5 and 10 years for all digestive cancers except small intestine and all gynaecologic cancers except breast. It was ≥10 years in prostate, breast, and urinary tract. The range of P according to age and sex was 37-79% for urinary tract 72-88% for prostate and breast, 4-16% for pancreatic and 47-62% for colorectal cancer.

Conclusion: Time-to-cure was estimated for the first time from a large national database and individual probabilities of cure. It was 0 in the younger patients with testis or thyroid cancer and <12 years in most cancer sites. These results should help improve access to credit and insurance for patients still alive past the estimated TTCs.