Providing clinicians and patients with actual prognosis: cancer in the context of competing causes of death.

ABSTRACT:

Background

To isolate progress against cancer from changes in competing causes of death, population cancer registries have traditionally reported cancer prognosis (net measures). But clinicians and cancer patients generally want to understand actual prognosis (crude measures): the chance of surviving, dying from the specific cancer and from competing causes of death in a given time period.

Objective

To compare cancer and actual prognosis in the United States for four leading cancers-lung, breast, prostate, and colon-by age, comorbidity, and cancer stage and to provide templates to help patients, clinicians, and researchers understand actual prognosis.

Method

Using population-based registry data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program, we ca

SUBMITTER: Howlader N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4841170 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature