What are the survival rates of secondary cancer (lymph nodes)?
This is a difficult question for me to answer, because I don’t have enough diagnostic detail to properly stage your friend’s breast cancer. There are different stages, and different survival rates based on the stages. I can tell you that once the cancer is found in the lymph nodes, it has metastasized (or spread). Cancer being found in the lymph nodes means that it is much more likely that it is present in other organs of the body, as the lymph system circulates throughout the body. If your friend is a Stage IIb (smaller tumor size, and only axillary lymph node involvement), she may have a five-year survival rate of 66%. If she is a Stage III (involves a spread of the cancer to either axillary lymph nodes that are attached to each other or to other structures, or to lymph nodes beneath the collarbone and near the neck), she will likely have a five-year survival rate of 36%. Hope this was helpful.
