If we focus on five-year survival for breast cancer, the bar has been set far too low.

Shouldn’t we be aiming higher?

“June 2018. I was 34 years old. My youngest child was 16 months old and I’d been back at work for only four months after maternity leave. Life was pretty good. My then partner and I had been talking about trying for another baby.

Then I found a lump.

I thought nothing of it. Despite being fairly health-conscious, I’d somehow absorbed the myths that breast cancer is mostly linked to a family history and that it’s not a younger woman’s disease. I mentioned it to my partner. He said I should get it checked out. I remember thinking, well, you would say that, as at the time his aunt had secondary breast cancer and was in a hospice nearing the end of her life. But I told myself it wouldn’t be cancer.

I booked a GP appointment for the following week. I remember thinking it was probably a clogged duct as I was still breastfeeding. I continued feeding my son and I had a period. The lump was still there. The theory around it being a clogged duct, or that it was probably hormonal, was gradually dissipating.

I went to the GP. She said breast cancer is very rare in young women, so it was probably hormonal. “But it’s a lump,” she said, “so I’ll refer you.”

Knowing what I know now about how many women my age are dismissed, I will forever be grateful to Dr King for making the referral.

Two weeks later I had the appointment. Initial assessment: probably a cyst. Then I went for an ultrasound and everything changed. The rummaging. The repeated images from multiple angles. It went on and on. The radiographer’s demeanour shifted from warm and chatty to concerned and evasive. That’s when the worry set in.

She said she’d send me for a mammogram and then back to her for a biopsy.

After the biopsy, I went back to the doctor who had first examined me and, with what he clearly thought was exemplary bedside manner, he said before I’d even sat down, “I am so surprised. You don’t have any family history. Don’t worry, it looks like it’s early and the treatments are good now.”

I asked, “Is it cancer?”

He said they’d rated it 4 out of 5 in terms of likelihood.

That was enough for me. I didn’t need to wait for the letter.

I called my mum. I collapsed onto something outside the hospital and said, “They said I have cancer.” She didn’t even know I’d been to the hospital. I hadn’t told anyone. Why would I? I wasn’t worried.

The two-week wait for confirmation was intense. The anxiety hinged on the slither of a chance that it wouldn’t be cancer. But if it was, life would change in ways that I couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

Then the confirmation came.

And I moved into practical mode. What now?

They said it was early, that the tumour was 15mm, with no evidence of cancer in my lymph nodes. So probably stage 1. I might not even need chemo. Just surgery, radiotherapy, and hormone therapy for five, maybe ten years.

I asked if I could still have a baby. I was told, “Absolutely not. Your cancer is hormone-positive and pregnancy will flood your body with the hormones that fuel it.”

I was nearly 35. If I had to wait until I was 45, I probably wouldn’t be able to have another child. In that moment, thinking the cancer probably wasn’t all that bad, with 95%+ survival, the thing that upset me most was not being able to have a baby. It represented what felt like the most significant departure from what I’d expected my life to look like then and in the future.

I went back to work and felt oddly okay. Like I’d been in a car accident, come out with a few grazes and thought, not that bad.

Then I had an MRI.

I went into that not worried. I thought it would just confirm what I already knew. Then again, everything changed. I was called back for more tests. The tumour was bigger. They thought it had spread to my lymph nodes. Now we were looking at stage 2 at the very least and chemo for certain.

I looked at the survival stats. Roughly 89% survival.

And thought, okay. I can live with that. Chemo will be awful, but I probably won’t die.

During this time I joined countless cancer groups: Cancer Research UK, Breast Cancer Now, Macmillan, and international Facebook groups. I met someone who later became a friend. We were the same age. Our children were the same age. Our diagnoses, at that point, sounded the same.

She seemed very doom and gloom in all of her posts on the group, and I couldn’t understand why. I messaged her: “Our diagnosis looks the same. Our survival chances are really good. Why are you so worried?”

If I had my time again, I wonder if I’d tell myself not to join those groups. Someone later said to me that groups can skew your perception, as people often go there when they’re struggling and when things aren’t going well.

She replied, “You don’t know the real stats, do you? The stats you’re looking at are five-year survival. Not beyond five years.”

She sent links showing that our long-term prognosis was significantly worse, closer to a 40% chance of dying.

I went on the NHS tool used by healthcare professionals to weigh up the benefits of treatments in breast cancer, the one they often advise patients not to look at. It showed my personal chance of dying from breast cancer within ten years was 45%.

Stage 2 breast cancer. Early breast cancer. The “good cancer” people used to say when I told them I had cancer. The cancer that, despite being one of the leading causes of death in women, including those under 50, is somehow framed as survivable. Manageable. Not that bad.

I remember picturing a roulette wheel. Black meant death. Red meant life. Too late now, the wheel was spinning. It was only a matter of time before I’d find out which colour I’d landed on.

I tried to hold onto hope.

In the big international groups there were daily posts about members who had “gained their wings.” Died. My partner would say, “Sophie, most people in your situation survive. That’s positive.” And statistically, he was right.

But that friend I’d made, a year after her primary diagnosis, was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer. She died within two years of her secondary diagnosis.

Between my diagnosis and now, I cannot count on two hands the number of women I connected with who have since died.

So now, I hate five-year survival stats. I hate them with a passion. The stats that had initially brought me so much comfort and informed my positive outlook, I now view as pure deception.

They give the impression, especially to those who know very little about breast cancer, that if you survive five years, you’re fine. That you get to five years, class yourself as all clear, a term I swiftly learned is not ever really used in relation to breast cancer, have a party, and you’re out of the woods and can get on with your life.

As Olivia Newton-John’s death, more than 20 years after her initial diagnosis, reminds us, it can come back at any time. With hormone-receptive breast cancer, the most common breast cancer subtype, you are never entirely safe. The risk of it returning persists.

The focus on five-year survival obscures the truth: that many of those alive at five years are living with secondary breast cancer, with an average prognosis of three to five years. That many who are cancer-free at five years will go on to have a recurrence. When you look at the stats for survival at 10 or 15 years post-diagnosis, the truth becomes more apparent.

On 4 February 2026, on World Cancer Day, the Government published its Cancer Plan. Among many other ambitions, what is highlighted is the ambition for more people to survive five years post-diagnosis. I know that for many cancers this bar makes sense. But for breast cancer, the most common cancer in females, and despite all of the advancements in technology and treatments still one of the leading causes of death in women, the bar is woefully low if all we ask is that someone is alive at five years. Surely the aspiration should be for more people to survive the disease, not to survive for an arbitrary period of time with or without it.” 

-Sophie Conway, Head of Policy & Engagement at CoppaFeel!

The Survival Gap: 5-Year vs. 15-Year Breast Cancer Statistics

When we look at 5-year survival targets alone, breast cancer could well be deemed a “more survivable cancer”. But what lies hidden underneath is a different reality. Especially for the youngest age groups, surviving for 5 years tells us far from the whole story.

Someone diagnosed with stage III breast cancer at age 27 has a 78% chance of living for another 5 years. But 15-year survival (the chance of that 27 year-old living to 42) is 38%.

How can we think that’s success?