For pancreatic cancer:
For all stages combined, the 1-year relative survival rate is 25%, and the 5-year survival is estimated as less than 5% to 6%.
For local disease, the 5-year survival is approximately 20%.
For locally advanced and for metastatic disease, which collectively represent over 80% to 85-90% of individuals, the median survival is about 10 and 6 months, respectively.
Without active treatment, metastatic pancreatic cancer has a median survival of 3–5 months; complete remission is rare.
In 2010, an estimated 43,000 people in the US were diagnosed with pancreas cancer and almost 37,000 died from the disease; pancreatic cancer has one of the highest fatality rates of all cancers, and is the fourth-highest cancer killer among both men and women worldwide.
Although it accounts for only 2.5% of new cases, pancreatic cancer is responsible for 6% of cancer deaths each year.