Cancer Statistics Are Useful To Prodict Prognosis
Cancer statistics is the term given to collecting, organizing and interpreting numerical data such that information can be gathered as an inference by analyzing a sample and relating this to the population.
Cancer statistics are useful when predicting a cancer patient’s prognosis. Prognosis is something that is discussed between cancer patients and their doctors which will give the patient an idea of the most probable outcome of their cancer condition (whether they might fully recover or whether they might have the cancer returning).
There are several important factors that could affect a patients’ prognosis, such as: type of the cancer, location of the cancer, the extent to which the cancer has spread, the abnormality of the cancer cells and growth rate of the cancer.
Other external factors that can also affect the prognosis of the patient are the patient’s age, normal health condition and how the patient responds to the treatment given.
The cancer statistics available to the doctors are carefully considered before a doctor discusses a patient’s prognosis, because these cancer statistics are collected by researches on various cancer patients over years.
The doctors carefully analyze the cancer statistics, and uses cancer statistics that are of a group of people most similar to the patient – especially regarding the factors that affect the prognosis.
For instance, if the patient is a male of the age 34, who used to be a heavy smoker, the doctor will take into consideration- the cancer statistics that are available of cancer patients of age group between – perhaps 30- 40, who are males and who were smokers, to base this particular patient’s prognosis.
Survival Rate- the percentage of cancer patients who have survived for a certain period of time after being diagnosed, with a certain type of cancer that has spread to a certain extent; The five year survival rate- the percentage of people who are still alive after five years from their initial diagnosis whether they have no symptoms of cancer, have few cancer symptoms or are either completely free of cancer or undergoing treatment; and Recurrence-free survival rate- shows how long a once cancer patient would survive free of the disease, rather than until death, are some of the commonly used cancer statistics.
The National Cancer Institute produces a report called the SEER cancer statistics review that is consistent with the latest cancer incidents and is available to the American public.The latest edition of this cancer statistics review includes statistics from 1975 to year 2005- the latest year to which these statistics are currently available.
Other countries such as the United Kingdom also publish their own Cancer fact reports, usually free for the public.
In addition to doctors, University students studying – for instance Oncology and various other research groups regard these cancer statistics-as an important resource; hence the availability of these reports to the public for free is extremely gratifying- as it is another step of increasing public awareness of cancer.
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