Which cancers are deadly over the long run?

To find out, scientists tracked common cancers in 13,556 men for 30 years and in 28,448 women for 35 years.

Roughly 80 percent of people with lung cancer died of the disease within 10 years, far more than those with cancer of the colon (35 percent), bladder in men (20 percent), uterus (15 percent), melanoma in men (7 percent), or thyroid in women (3 percent). But beyond 10 years, those percentages barely budged.

In contrast, deaths from breast cancer climbed slowly, from 12 percent after 10 years to 21 percent after 35 years. Likewise, prostate cancer deaths inched up from 9 percent after 10 years to 15 percent after 30 years.

What to do

If you live longer than 10 years after a diagnosis of lung, breast, prostate, colon, bladder, uterine, or thyroid cancer or melanoma, you’re unlikely to die of that cancer. For more on cutting your cancer risk, see our article.