Bowel Cancer Survival Calculator
Denis Strigun, Naked Science
Researchers from the University of Nottingham have developed a universal online service for calculating survival rates for different types of colorectal cancer.
In addition to scientists, the assessment of tumor survival is important for doctors: so, it allows you to optimize the course of treatment to minimize side effects and improve the quality of life of patients. Usually, the forecast is based on statistics taking into account one or two factors, for example, gender and age. Models for certain categories of victims help to increase the reliability of such predictions. In particular, in 2011-2014, algorithms for calculating the indicator at the stage of surgical intervention and stage III of bowel cancer, one of the most common forms of the disease, were presented. However, there are no universal and personalized models for such an assessment.
To fill the gap, the authors of the new work built a model for assessing the risk of death in colorectal cancer, taking into account various factors. At the first stage, they examined the cases of 44,145 patients aged 15-99 years, information about which was entered into the QResearch national database in 1998-2014. As part of the analysis, the researchers, in addition to anamnesis, took into account the age of diagnosis, family history, the presence of nicotine addiction, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, body mass index (BMI), income and other parameters. Then, using Cox regression, they determined the probability of a fatal outcome from concomitant causes and separately from bowel cancer.
The resulting model was tested on 437,821 patients from the registry of the Ministry of Health of the United Kingdom, data about which were not listed in QResearch. Primary treatment showed that male patients were more likely to suffer from nicotine addiction, type 2 diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases than women. The latter, in turn, were more characterized by anemia and excess platelets. During the observation period, approximately half (50.5–50.7 percent) of respondents died from causes related to colorectal cancer. The survival rate of patients for five years was 91.7–93.4 percent at the first and 8.8–9.8 percent at the fourth stage, after ten years – 91.6 and 4.7 percent.
Example of assessing the risk of death from cancer (blue color) and related factors (blue color) for a 38-year-old woman with stage IV colorectal cancer during surgery and chemotherapy (from an article in BMJ).
Based on the model, scientists have developed an online survival calculator. With the help of the service, the patient can calculate the risk of death taking into account certain parameters, in particular age, body weight, surgical intervention and a course of chemotherapy. As an example, the team cited a hypothetical female patient at the age of 38 at stage IV of bowel cancer. If treatment was refused, the probability of survival for five years in this case was six percent. Surgical intervention increased the rate to 23 percent, and the full course of therapy – to 45 percent. The authors note that the model has a high predictive ability.
The article was published in The British Medical Journal. The survival calculator is available on the project's website.
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20.06.2017