Time-to-cure and cure proportion in solid cancers in France. A population based study

[Display omitted] •Cure indicators estimated from the French cancer registries database.•Time-to-cure: time at which the probability of belonging to the cured group is 95%.•Time-to-cure less than 10 years for most of the 27 studied cancer sites.•Time-to-cure less than 5 years for thyroid and testis cancers and skin melanoma.•Cancer survivors should access to credit without being overtaxed. In cancer care, the cure proportion (P) and time-to-cure (TTC) are important indicators for practitioners, patients, and healthcare policy makers. The recent definition of TTC as the time at which the probability of belonging to the cured group reaches 95% was used for the first time. The data stem from the common database of French cancer registries including 335,358 solid tumours diagnosed between 1995 and 2009 at 27 sites. P and TTC were estimated through a flexible parametric net survival cure model for each cancer site, sex, and age at diagnosis with acceptable assumption of cure (excess mortality rate ≤0.05). TTC was ≤5 years and P was >80% for skin melanoma and thyroid and testis cancers. It was 0 for testis cancer in men