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BMJ No 7119 Volume 315 Letters Saturday 22 November 1997
New method for expressing survival in cancerEditor,Vaidya and Mittra(1) provide an interesting new perspective on survival data in cancer. The ability to quote the probability of an individual enjoying a normal life span is valuable, but I question whether this is a cure: patients may still suffer much from their cancer during this time. This perspective may readily be applied to patients after excision of primary tumours, many of whom will remain disease free for years, but is of limited use in medical oncology, where survival is often very short. The claims for this method being better than conventional information on disease impact are not substantiated: evidence from patients or health professionals would have been useful. Many patients wish to know how long they have left, and when this is a short time, the fact that this may represent 5%, or even 45%, of the time which they might otherwise have expected to live is immaterial.
Mark Middleton Clinical research fellow
CRC Department of Medical Oncology,
Reference
1 Vaidya J S, Mittra I. Fraction of normal remaining life span:
a new method for expressing survival in cancer. BMJ 1997;
314:1682-4. (7 June.)
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