Canadians diagnosed with the most common cancers are more likely to survive the disease if they catch it at an earlier stage, according to a new Statistics Canada report.

The study, released Wednesday, provides the first Canadian estimates of five-year cancer survival by stage at diagnosis.

It examined cases of the most commonly diagnosed cancers in Canada between 2010 and 2017, including lung, breast, prostate, colon and rectal cancer, which together account for nearly half of all cancer cases diagnosed in Canada.

The results showed that the likelihood of surviving these cancers decreases if they are diagnosed at a later stage of the disease.

For example, women diagnosed with breast cancer experienced five-year net survival rates of 100% when the disease was detected at stage I, 92% at stage II, 74% at stage III and 23% at stage IV.

For colon cancer, five-year net survival decreased from 92% in stage I to 11% in stage IV, while, for prostate cancer, the prognosis was close to 100% in the first three stages and then decreased to 41%. in stage IV.

Overall, net survival rates exceeded 90% for all cancers studied that were detected at stage I, except lung cancer.

For lung cancer, survival rates decreased by just over 20 percentage points between stages I and II disease, as well as between stages II and III, and decreased by another 13 points between stages III and IV.