What Is The Prognosis For People With Bowel Cancer?

About 35,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with cancer of the colon (bowel) each year.  Poor quality diet, smoking, obesity, genetics and other bowel diseases (such as Crohn's disease) are known to increase the risk of getting this disease.

The prognosis depends a lot on what stage the cancer is yet.  Survival rates are usually given to five years; if you live five years after diagnosis, it's unlikely (though not definite) that bowel cancer will actually be your cause of death.

5 year surival rates if the bowel cancer is, when first diagnosed:

confined to just the bowel: 80-90%

has grown through the bowel but not reached lymph nodes: about 65%

some lymph nodes near the bowel have the cancer, but it's not spread further: about 45%.

Unfortunately, if the cancer has spread beyond the lymph nodes near the bowel, the surival rate is less than 5%.

Younger people have a better prognosis than older people diagnosed with the disease.