What is the long-term outlook for people with small cell lung cancer? SCLC is a very aggressive form of cancer that often goes undiagnosed until it’s more advanced, so the survival rate tends to be low. However, if the cancer is detected in its early stages, the chances of making a recovery are much higher.

Regardless of stage, the prognosis for patients with SCLC is unsatisfactory despite improvements in diagnosis and therapy during the past 25 years. Without treatment, SCLC has the most aggressive clinical course of any type of pulmonary tumor, with a median survival from diagnosis of only 2 to 4 months.