Maso LD, Panato C, Guzzinati S, et al. - Researchers sought for population-based indicators of cancer cure. Using population-based Italian cancer registries, they retrieved information on more than half a million cancer patients aged 15-74 years, and using mixture cure models, they determined the life expectancy of fatal tumors (LEFT), proportions of patients with similar death rates of the general population (cure fraction), and time to reach 5-year conditional relative survival (CRS) > 90% or 95% (time to cure). As per findings, prognosis and cure of adult Italian cancer patients have generally improved between 1990 and 2000, measured here in terms of cure fraction and of life expectancy of fatal cases. Adult Italian cancer patients displayed a 10% average increase of cure fraction, and a 4-5 months increase of median LEFT in a decade. For testis, thyroid, colon cancers, and melanoma, excess cancer mortality risk disappeared in < 10 years, while for breast and prostate cancers, it remained for > 15 years.