My recent studies of breast cancer statistics reveal a new  and unexpected pattern. Most patients live with breast cancer for decades, and most of the time they feel healthy. This is illustrated here by Fig. 1 which depicts the relative survival of white females with breast cancer.  The data were obtained from the SEER database. Looking at the declining curve one realizes that many women die on their way. However the figure reveals also an unexpected facet of cancer. Many women actually control their cancer.

Long survival with breast cancer

During their long life with cancer women actually control their disease, and their prospect improves from year to year. Note that with time the curve becomes shallower, the yearly death rate declines and  less and less women succumb to their disease. We would like the curve to become horizontal, which would indicate that some women were cured, and do not die anymore from cancer. Unfortunately the curve continues to decline asymptotically and never ends as  horizontal line