Disease-Free Survival

Period after successful treatment in which there is no appearance of the

symptoms or effects of the disease.

In cancer, the length of time after primary treatment for a cancer ends that the patient survives without
any signs or symptoms of that cancer. In a clinical trial, measuring the disease-free survival is one way
to see how well a new treatment works. Also called DFS.
Oncology The time that a person with a disease lives without known
recurrence; DFS is major clinical parameter used to evaluate the
efficacy of a particular therapy, which is usually measured in 'units' of 1
or 5 yrs.
Disease-Free Survival
The amount of time that a person with a diseaseusually understood to
mean cancerlives without known recurrence. Disease-free survival is
a major clinical parameter used to evaluate the efficacy of a particular
therapy, which is usually measured in units of 1 or 5 years
Disease Free Interval
This is the length of time it takes for a cancer to recur once it has been
considered eradicated.
Mortality rate is a measure of the number of deaths (in general, or due
to a specific cause) in a population, scaled to the size of that population,
per unit of time. Mortality rate is typically expressed in units of deaths
per 1000 individuals per year; thus, a mortality rate of 9.5 (out of 1000)
in a population of 1,000 would mean 9.5 deaths per year in that entire
population, or 0.95% out of the total. It is distinct from morbidity rate,
which refers to the number of individuals in poor health during a given
time period (the prevalence rate) or the number of newly appearing
cases of the disease per unit of time (incidence rate). The term
"mortality" is also sometimes inappropriately used to refer to the number
of deaths among a set of diagnosed hospital cases for a disease or
injury, rather than for the general population of a country or ethnic
group. This disease mortality statistic is more precisely referred to as
"case fatality rate" (CFR).
Age-specific mortality rate
Counts only deaths in specific age group
Usually calculated for children less than 5 years of age
Denominator includes only persons in that age group
There are also mortality rates which are not really rates. They
use live births as the denominator instead of the actual group
in which deaths are counted:
Infant mortality rate
Counts deaths in children less than 12 months of age, divides
by number of live births in same time period
Maternal mortality rate
Counts deaths in women due to pregnancy or child birth,
divides by number of live births in same time period
Under-5 mortality rate
Counts deaths in the first 5 years of life, divides by number of
live births in the hypothetical cohort of newborns.
Cancer survivor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
A cancer survivor is a person with cancer of any type who is still living.
Whether a person becomes a survivor at the time of diagnosis or after
completing treatment, whether people who are actively dying are
considered survivors, and whether healthy friends and family members
of the cancer patient are also considered survivors, varies from group to
group. Some people who have been diagnosed with cancer reject the
term survivor or disagree with some definitions of it.
How many people are cancer survivors depends on the definition used.
About 11 million Americans alive todayone in 30 peopleare either
currently undergoing treatment for cancer or have done so in the past.[1]
Currently nearly 65% of adults diagnosed with cancer in the developed
world are expected to live at least five years after the cancer is
discovered.[2]
Many cancer survivors describe the process of living with and beating
cancer as a life-changing experience.[3] It is not uncommon for
survivors to use the experience as opportunities for creative self-
transformation into a "better person" or as motivation to meet goals of
great personal importance, such as climbing a mountain or reconciling
with an estranged family member. Cancer survivors often have specific
medical and non-medical needs related to their cancer experience.
Macmillan Cancer Support in the UK defines a cancer survivor as
someone who is "living with or beyond cancer", namely someone who:
has completed initial cancer management and has no apparent
evidence of active disease;
is living with progressive disease and may be receiving cancer
treatment, but is not in the terminal phases of illness; or
has had cancer in the past.[4]
The National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship (NCCS) pioneered the
definition of survivor as being any person diagnosed with cancer, from
the time of initial diagnosis until his or her death. This expansive
definition of "survivor" includes people who are dying from untreatable
cancer. NCCS later expanded the definition of survivor even further to
include family, friends and voluntary caregivers who are affected by the
diagnosis in any way.[5] The US National Cancer Institute's Office of
Cancer Survivorship uses a variant of this expanded definition.[5]