EXPRESSIONS USED TO DESCRIBE EFFECTS OF TREATMENT – WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TO MAKE THE BEST DECISIONS (PART 2) | Pharmacynote

May
15
2009

EXPRESSIONS USED TO DESCRIBE EFFECTS OF TREATMENT – WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TO MAKE THE BEST DECISIONS (PART 2)

Posted by: admin in Categories: Cancer.
Using Tags: Cancer

Say your doctor tells you that one in twenty (five per cent) of patients with your particular type and stage of cancer are cured with a particular treatment. The median survival is twelve months. The five year survival is one in twenty (five per cent). What does this mean for you? It means that if you have this treatment, there is a fifty-fifty chance that you will live less than twelve months. There is only a one in twenty chance that you will live five years but if you do, you will know you are almost certainly completely cured. Imagine for the same situation, if your doctor simply said ‘You could be completely cured and live as long as you would have if you had never had the cancer’. This is true but doesn’t really give a complete picture. A patient told only this would be much more likely to agree to a twelve month course of intensive chemotherapy than a patient who knew that there was a fifty per cent chance of dying before even completing the treatment. So do make sure that you get more detailed information than what is possible but unlikely. This is the part the doctor is most likely to tell you, but on its own and without percentage figures it can be very misleading.