Prognosis

• prognosis for people with small-cell lung cancer is poor

Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) can be classified into limited stage (LS-SCLC; 30%) vs extensive stage (ES-SCLC; 70%) based on whether the disease can be treated within a radiation field that is typically confined to 1 hemithorax but may include contralateral mediastinal and supraclavicular nodes (1):

• three-year overall survival is approximately 56.5% for LS-SCLC and 17.6% for ES-SCLC (1)
  

Overall five-year survival rates for SCLC have increased from 4.9% (1983 through 1993) to 6.4% (2002 through 2012) (2).

Reference:

1. Kim SY, Park HS, Chiang AC. Small Cell Lung Cancer: A Review. JAMA. 2025;333(21):1906–1917.
2. Basumallik N, Agarwal M. Small Cell Lung Cancer. [Updated 2023 Jul 10]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2025 Jan-.