Expected Survival Curves Research Articles

THE CURABILITY OF BREAST CANCER

Results are presented of a long-term follow-up of patients with breast cancer seen in the Cambridge area from 1947 to 1950. After 21 years the survival curve of the breast-cancer patients runs parallel to the expected survival curve of a similar normal population. This suggests that 18 % of all the breast-cancer patients may be regarded as cured of their disease in the sense defined by Easson and Russell. 5 An analysis of the causes of death in the study group after 20 years' follow-up shows an excess of deaths from breast cancer. The number is 16 times more than would be expected in the normal population, although the overall death-rates in the two groups are the same. This questions the concept of cure.

Extended Radiotherapy in Advanced Hodgkin's Disease

THE LITERATURE convincingly substantiates the argument that clinically localized Hodgkin's disease, in the absence of constitutional symptoms, is controllable for prolonged periods if not curable by intensive irradiation. The frequency of survival at ten years following treatment is appreciable.^1-4Perhaps more important is the comparability of the survival curve at five and particularly at ten years after therapy³to the expected survival curve for the control population. It has also been observed that the clinical pattern of spread is predictable⁵with new manifestations of disease showing a tendency to occur in areas immediately adjacent to regions of initial involvement. This has encouraged the so-called prophylactic irradiation of lymphatic sites adjacent to the clinically involved nodes. Although the value of this approach has not yet been confirmed by controlled investigations, there is suggestive merit to the concept in the reported results.² An obvious extension of the above