Stage 4 cancer, meaning it has spread (metastasis), is generally not considered curable, but it is often treatable, manageable, and can lead to long-term survival or remission, not just a short-term prognosis, thanks to advances in chemotherapy, targeted therapy, immunotherapy, and radiation, with the goal shifting to controlling the cancer and improving quality of life. While some rare exceptions exist, like certain testicular cancers, treatment aims to extend life and maintain well-being, with significant progress making it less of a death sentence than in the past.
Although the overall prognosis may be poor based on cases with previous patients and older treatments, many patients with stage 4 cancer can live for years. A few factors to keep in mind: Many treatments are available to help fight cancer. The body's response to treatment may differ from that of others.
There is no cure for kidney failure, but with treatment it is possible to live a long, fulfilling life.
Newer cancer treatments can put some (but not all) Stage IV cancers into partial or complete remission.
Stage IV lung cancer survivor: Targeted therapy and surgery left me cancer-free. As a retired firefighter and combat veteran, I've been in some pretty tough situations. But the hardest thing I've ever done was sit my four children down and tell them I had stage IV lung cancer.
In many cases, people with end-stage metastatic cancer are offered chemotherapy to ease pain and improve their quality of life. When chemotherapy is given for these reasons, it's called palliative chemotherapy.
The term stage 5 isn't used with most types of cancer. Most advanced cancers are grouped into stage 4. An exception is Wilms tumor, or nephroblastoma, a childhood cancer that originates in the kidneys. Stage 5 Wilms tumors are those that affect both kidneys.
Metastatic cancer causes most cancer deaths, but exactly why it is so difficult to treat is not precisely understood. Metastatic tumors often acquire additional genetic changes from those in the primary tumors that spawned them, and these genetic characteristics may cause them to resist standard treatments.
Results. Of the 93 patients, the median survival time (MST) was 14.0 months, and the 1, 2, and 3-year survival rates were 54.8%, 20.4%, and 12.9%, respectively. The MST of patients received radiation dose to primary tumor ≥63Gy and <63 Gy for primary tumor were 15.0 and 8.0 months, respectively (P = 0.001).
For someone around 60, stage 1 stage 2 kidney disease life expectancy will be approximately 15 years. That figure falls to 13 years, 8 years, and 6 years in the second, third, and fourth stages of kidney disease, respectively.
To strengthen your kidneys, focus on a healthy lifestyle: stay hydrated with water, eat a balanced diet low in salt and processed foods, exercise regularly, avoid smoking and excessive alcohol, manage blood pressure and sugar, limit over-the-counter pain relievers (like NSAIDs), and maintain a healthy weight to support overall kidney function.
These medicines include an ACE inhibitor/ARB, an SGLT2 inhibitor and/or an nsMRA. Your healthcare professional may also prescribe a statin (cholesterol medicine). Guidelines recommend statins for people with stage 4 CKD who also have diabetes, a history of heart disease, or are age 50 or older.
Stage 4 cancer is not always terminal. It is usually advanced and requires more aggressive treatment. Terminal cancer refers to cancer that is not curable and eventually results in death.
Incurable cancers are those that current treatments cannot completely eliminate, often because they are advanced (spread) or have returned after initial treatment, but they are not necessarily untreatable; treatments like chemo, radiation, and new targeted therapies aim to control the disease, slow growth, relieve symptoms, and improve quality of life. Common examples of cancers often considered incurable include pancreatic, liver, brain, esophageal, and certain advanced lung cancers, but research continuously offers new hope, with many patients living longer with ongoing management.
If your cancer is resistant to treatment or you are near the end of life, chemotherapy may decrease your quality of life. 4 There may be times when the side effects of chemotherapy are not worth it, especially if other rounds of chemotherapy have been ineffective.
Thyroid, testicular, and some skin cancers often have very high survival rates and rarely lead to death. Knowing about cancer survival rates helps patients choose the best treatment. Chemotherapy has gotten better over time. It now helps more patients than before.
For instance, certain types of breast, colorectal, and lung cancers can grow slowly and remain asymptomatic for extended periods.
How do doctors determine how long you have to live? What we know about a prognosis for a patient with any medical disease or disorder is largely based on those who came before them. What you're really looking at is the risk of the population—that is, how long anyone else with the same disease survived.
This is an advanced stage of cancer. It usually means that the cancer has grown or spread beyond its original location to distant body parts and organs in the body. People diagnosed with this stage of cancer often need extra care; patients might live several years after getting proper treatments.
A stage 4 cancer diagnosis may sound like the end of life for most people, but it is neither the end game nor a life sentence. But there's still hope and healing possible. All of these stage 4 cancer survivor stories show that with the help of effective cancer treatments, it can improve the quality of life.
Painkillers
No, stage 4 cancer is not always a 100% death sentence, though it's advanced and often not curable; many people live for extended periods, sometimes years or decades, due to improved treatments that control the cancer, prolong life, and improve quality of life, with survival depending heavily on the cancer type, individual health, and treatment response. While survival rates for stage 4 cancer are lower than earlier stages, advances mean it's no longer automatically a quick death, with some patients achieving long-term control or remission.
The top 3 "worst" cancers, often defined by the highest number of deaths globally, are consistently lung cancer, colorectal cancer, and liver cancer, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and other health organizations, with pancreatic cancer also frequently cited as extremely deadly due to poor survival rates. Lung cancer causes the most fatalities worldwide, followed by colon/rectum and liver cancers, though specific rankings can vary slightly by year and region.