The number of Americans who live at least five years after a cancer diagnosis has risen sharply since the mid-1970s due to increased screening, improved medical treatment and overall higher life expectancy, federal health experts reported on Thursday.

An estimated 64 percent of adults diagnosed with cancer between 1995 and 2000 could expect to be alive five years later, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute.

The five-year survival rate was 50 percent for adults diagnosed between 1974 and 1976.

The five-year survival rates - considered a key marker for cancer patients - excluded noncancer-related deaths.

Young teens and children also had higher cancer survival rates, according to the study, which was released by the CDC.

Seventy-nine percent of children under the age of 15 were expected to live five years after a diagnosis between 1991 and 2000. The five-year survival rate for this group was only 56 percent during the 1974-1976 period.

U.S. health officials said improving cancer survival rates indicated a need to focus more attention on the long-term health as well as social and economic well-being of cancer patients.

An estimated 9.8 million Americans, or 3.5 percent of the population, were living with cancer in 2001, compared to 3 million, or 1.5 percent of the population, three decades earlier, according to the study.

“Issues faced by cancer survivors include maintaining optimal physical and mental health, preventing disability and late effects related to cancer and its treatment, and ensuring social and economic well-being for themselves and their family,” said Dr. Julia Rowland, an National Cancer Institute official and one of the study’s authors.

Breast cancer was the most common primary cancer reported by survivors in 2001, followed by prostate cancer, colorectal cancer and gynecologic cancer. An estimated 60 percent of all newly diagnosed cancers in 2001 were among those 65 and older.

SOURCE: Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report, June 25, 2004.