What Are Survival Rates for Prostate and Testicular Cancers? 

Survival rates for prostate and testicular cancer are quite good, especially for younger patients due to more comprehensive screening and advanced treatments. 

If you or someone you love has recently been diagnosed with prostate or testicular cancer, you might find yourself wondering if that person will survive their cancer treatment. Cancer can be a scary diagnosis, but the good news is that survival rates for prostate and testicular cancer are quite good due to increased awareness and diagnostic screenings and advances in cancer treatments.  

Prostate cancer survival rates 

In terms of prostate cancer, outlooks are good, says Sij Hemal, MD, a urologic oncologist with USC Urology, part of Keck Medicine of USC. 

“If you look at the long-term data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database, you can see that for prostate cancer patients with localized Stage 1 or Stage 2 prostate cancer and even earlier parts of Stage 3 prostate cancer, the five-year survival rate is more than 99%,” Dr. Hemal says. Even for cases where the cancer may have gone to the lymph nodes within the pelvis, or even if it is going outside of the prostate, involving the seminal vesicles or nerves, the survival rate is still pretty good, with over 99% of patients surviving in five years, he says.  

However, if patients have metastatic prostate cancer, meaning the cancer has spread to the bones, lungs or liver (defined as distant metastasis that is outside of the pelvis), or their cancer has gone to other lymph nodes in the body, then overall five-year survival drops to 34%, Dr. Hemal says. 

Survival rates for prostate cancer depend on the cancer’s stage and Gleason grading score, he adds.  

 “We will have very good outcomes overall if your cancer is biologically in the intermediate or high-risk category and or clinically it’s within the first couple of stages or early stage 3,” Dr. Hemal says. 

Testicular cancer survival rates 

“Survival and prognosis of testicular cancer patients is great,” says Hooman Djaladat, MD, a urologic oncologist with USC Urology. “This is one of the very few cancers that affects mostly younger men with a high cure rate — and by cure, that means not just in remission but cured for long-term.”  

A patient’s response to chemotherapy, risk stratification via International Germ Cell Cancer Collaborative Group (IGCCCG) classification will determine your survival rate, he says. 

Within the IGCCCG, there are three categories: good, intermediate and poor, with the following five-year survival rates:  

• Good: Typically more than 90% 
• Intermediate: 70%-80% 
• Poor: Somewhere around 50%-70% 

One thing that can put you at higher risk for developing testicular cancer is undescended testicles, Dr. Djaladat says. This is something that parents should check for, or have their pediatrician check for, when their child is born so that the condition can be remedied with surgery if necessary. “The earlier the diagnosis is made, the sooner surgically it’s fixed and it’s descended, then the lower the chance of developing testicular cancer in the future,” Dr. Djaladat says. 

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