Overall survival
is a term often used during clinical trials of a certain
prostate cancer treatment. Overall survival is a measure
of the percentage of patients who are still living at
the time of follow-up. Many doctors believe that no
prostate cancer treatment has a statistically significant
“better” or “worse” overall
survival rate, possibly because most cases of prostate
cancer have unusually slow growth rates.
At this time, there have been no
randomized clinical trials dedicated to comparing all
available prostate cancer treatments. There is no measurement
standard that researchers have to use in measuring survival
rates. Researchers measuring biochemical relapse free
survival may use different PSA levels to measure the
success of a treatment, while others measuring overall
survival rates may not be able to locate all of their
patients at the time of follow-up. Patients therefore
should not choose a treatment simply based on the comparison
of two outcome percentages from two different clinical
trials.
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