Fig. 2.

Relative survival of early-stage cancers in the Netherlands compared to the USA. The emerald green bar depicts the 10-year relative survival rate in the USA as per Marcadis et al. [1], the orange bar depicts the 10-year relative survival rate in the Netherlands, and the gray error bar depicts the 95% confidence intervals for the 10-year relative survival rate. The table presents the ten-year relative survival (RS) rates for the ten early-stage cancers according to country. Bold estimates in the table indicate 10-year relative survival rates exceeding 100%. Relative survival is a popular net measure to quantify cancer patient survival with cancer registry data, which measures the survival of cancer patients relative to the expected survival of a comparable group from the general population [4]. Its popularity emanates from the fact that it does not depend on the cause of death, which is often unavailable or unreliable in cancer registry data. In view of this, disease-specific survival—which relies on the accurate classification of the cause of death—might be miscalculated with cancer registry data. Therefore, relative survival is generally considered a proper measure to estimate disease-specific survival and to inform cancer patients about their outlook relative to an equivalent group from the general population. Our study population exclusively includes patients with one primary tumor that has been pathologically confirmed. The stage of the cancer was determined using the Tumor-Node-Metastasis (TNM) classification prevailing at the time of diagnosis. Also, the Gleason scoring system was used to grade prostate cancer. The location and histology of the tumor are registered in the Netherlands Cancer Registry according to the Third Edition of the International Classification of Diseases for Oncology (ICD-O-3)