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. A prognosis allows a cancer patient to know the probable outcome of their cancer condition. This is usually discussed with the patient's doctor and the patient will know whether they have a probability of fully recovering or whether there is a chance for the cancer to recur. 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.
Certain external factors also affect the prognosis; such as: the age of the patient, general health condition and the patient's response to the given treatment. 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 doctor has to be careful, when analyzing the cancer statistics, to consider the cancer statistics that are most similar to the patient- especially when it involves the factors affecting a patient's prognosis. If there is a male patient of the age 44, who was a heavy drinker, when basing this particular patient's prognosis, the doctor will take into consideration, for example, the cancer statistics that are available of cancer patients in the age group of 40 - 50, who are males and who were heavy drinkers.
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 SEER cancer statistics review produced by the National Cancer Institute, for the American public, reports the latest cancer incidents researched.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 statistics 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.
About the Author:
Types of cancer, cancer signs, cancer symptoms, cancer treatment, brief info about all types of cancer, cancer statistics, types about cancer treatment from top doctors at diseasesconditionstreatments.info
No comments:
Post a Comment