A word of caution – median survivals do not help tell us much about any one individual. Some do much better than 20 months, and some do not live as long. There is a wide variation in lengths of survivals.
There are many factors that would affect an estimation of prognosis – factors that the oncologist following this case knows and we do not. How old is she? What is her overall health status? What therapy has been tried? Is she refractory to front line chemotherapy? What is her overall health and performance status? What is the estimated bulk of her malignant disease? Has the cancer been optimally debulked surgically? Is she a candidate for aggressive surgery?
Every person is unique. We cannot predict expected times of death months ahead of time. Family members often push for a guess, and we usually wind up being wrong when we try to make long term predictions. The end is easy to see only when it is near – in the last few weeks or days.
From http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/255771-overview
The 5-year survival rates for ovarian carcinoma are as follows:
* Stage I – 73%
* Stage II – 45%
* Stage III – 21%
* Stage IV – Less than 5%
From this 1990 study http://www.springerlink.com/content/q071u3837210328q/ – the estimated median survival times for stage III and IV ovarian carcinoma patients was ~ 20 months.
A word of caution – median survivals do not help tell us much about any one individual. Some do much better than 20 months, and some do not live as long. There is a wide variation in lengths of survivals.
There are many factors that would affect an estimation of prognosis – factors that the oncologist following this case knows and we do not. How old is she? What is her overall health status? What therapy has been tried? Is she refractory to front line chemotherapy? What is her overall health and performance status? What is the estimated bulk of her malignant disease? Has the cancer been optimally debulked surgically? Is she a candidate for aggressive surgery?
Every person is unique. We cannot predict expected times of death months ahead of time. Family members often push for a guess, and we usually wind up being wrong when we try to make long term predictions. The end is easy to see only when it is near – in the last few weeks or days.