Clinical calculator of conditional survival estimates for resected and unresected survivors of pancreatic cancer.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To calculate conditional survival estimates for patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma.

Design

We constructed separate multivariate survival models adjusted for 7 clinicopathologic factors for patients who did and did not undergo radical surgical resection.

Participants

Patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma diagnosed between 1988 and 2005 included in the Surveillance Epidemiology End Results cancer registry.

Main outcome measure

Internet browser-based calculator to compute personalized survival estimates.

Results

Conditional survival probabilities increased over time for all patients with pancreatic cancer regardless of patient characteristics, disease stage, or treatment. For patients with resected stage I, II, or III disease, 3-year conditional cancer-specific survival increased from 38% to 70%, 19% to 54%, and 8% to 39%, respectively, over the 3 years following diagnosis. The relative improvement in survival over time was larger for patients with advanced disease. A customizable, Internet browser-based clinical calculator was implemented that may be used to compute in real time personalized conditional survival estimates based on an individual's unique clinicopathologic profile.

Conclusions

Conditional survival estimates provide a more accurate--and typically more optimistic--assessment of prognosis for patients with pancreatic cancer than traditional survival estimates that apply only at the initial diagnosis.

SUBMITTER: Katz MH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3740148 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature