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T3 20yr Survival Rate

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Posted 6/16/2011 9:34 PM (GMT 0)
And now for some good better news...

"Their study found a 20-year survival rate for 80 percent of patients diagnosed with cancer that has potentially spread beyond the prostate, known as cT3 prostate cancer, and treated with radical prostatectomy, or surgery to remove the prostate gland."

Surgeons looking for more patients?

"We have confirmed that patients diagnosed with locally advanced prostate cancer can enjoy a long, cancer-free interval."

---"interval"--- not my favorite term for my life :|

I'm not sure what to make of this study. T3 20 year survival is 80% -that sound pretty good. Doesn't seem to square with the monograms.

Advanced-Stage Prostate Cancer Patients Experience 20-Year Survival Rates With Surgery, Mayo Clinic Long-Term Follow-Up Shows

http://www.mayoclinic.org/news2011-rst/6280.html

Do we believe this? Has any other study claimed T3 80% survival at 20 years?

K2

Posted 6/16/2011 9:51 PM (GMT 0)
k2,

if those numbers proved to be true, that would be enouraging to anyone dealing with a T3 situation.

david in sc
Posted 6/16/2011 9:52 PM (GMT 0)
Note:

By "better" news I'm referring to Kobta's posted study by King's College London on PCa.

K2
Posted 6/16/2011 10:00 PM (GMT 0)
The 80 percent survival rate for cT3 diagnoses at 20 years compares to 90 percent for cT2, or cancer confined to the prostate. This long-term follow-up of patients who underwent surgery between 1987 and 1997 is an important advance in understanding the quality outcomes for cT3 patients. The study sample included patients diagnosed and operated on between 1987 and 1997. Ongoing research will examine contemporary data.

How can you show a 20-year survival rate for someone treated in 1997?
Posted 6/16/2011 10:38 PM (GMT 0)
FrackMe,
Patients enter and leave the statistical analysis at different points, and a technique called Kaplan-Meier is commonly used in cancer survival statistics to allow those patients' survival to contribute to the data without skewing it. It's all beyond me, but you will see Kaplan-Meier mentioned in a lot of studies. This site outlines the reason and method:
http://www.cancerguide.org/scurve_km.html
Posted 6/16/2011 11:25 PM (GMT 0)
-"interval"--- not my favorite term for my life :| -K2

“Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.” -Omar Khayyam
Posted 6/16/2011 11:37 PM (GMT 0)
They must be calculating only cohorts that have crossed the 20 year mark i.e., <1992. It wasn't a published paper - the researchers presented their findings during the American Urological Association Annual Meeting in Washington in May 2011.

If making news was the objective they've done pretty well - a lot of sites have picked up the story.

BUT IT IS PRELIMINARY
"The study was slated for presentation May 15 at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association, in Washington, D.C. Research presented at meetings is considered preliminary until it is published in a peer-reviewed journal."

http://www.pcf.org/site/c.leJRIROrEpH/b.7323871/k.461A/Surgery_Viable_for_Advanced_Prostate_Cancer_Study_Finds.htm?msource=may11np&auid=8371415
Posted 6/17/2011 12:02 AM (GMT 0)
k2,

i find the various studies, nonograms, percentages as interesting as the next PC guy, there's definitely a lot to glean from them. At the individual level, I find them of limited use, i.e. pertaining to my own case. On paper, I should be doing much better than I am, and even if you eliminated all the side effects, complications, etc from my journey, I should have been in a better situation for controlling the cancer. When I was downgraded after surgery from 4+3 to 3+4, I sighed a big relief, thinking that would work in my favor. I always have the same wish, that one day (perhaps not in our generation of PC fighters), there will be more effective dx tools available to pin point the variants and aggressiveness of our cancers. Then, of course, treatment decisions could be more focused and determined for our actual needs. Even with patients that are well educated on their choices, and even when they are among the top doctors, it's still a shot in the dark at times, with the hope that the cancer can be stopped in its tracks.

not sure i will be alive 25 years from now, but would love to look into the future, and see what might get discovered or developed in fighting the beast. perhaps they will look back to these times as the "barbaric" times in PC related medicine.

one can only hope for better choices for the next generation of PC men.

david
Posted 6/17/2011 12:23 AM (GMT 0)
Even though you can't extrapolate the Mayo data for one's personal future, it sure is nice to see a study that gives some hope.
Posted 6/17/2011 1:36 AM (GMT 0)
20 years puts me at 73. From my checkered youth, I never thought I'd make it this long. I consider that a bonus!!!!
Posted 6/17/2011 8:18 AM (GMT 0)
As a T3a person myself, 20 years will put me at 91, so here's hoping!! yeah
Posted 6/17/2011 1:45 PM (GMT 0)
I do not see a link to the actual paper, presentation, or data. Only the announcement and the few details. Missing, among other items, is the age of the men under study. Since this study started quite a while ago I wager that the median age was 65 or very near to. That means that at 20 years out most of the men have died. Half of the group would have been older than 65 at treatment. Twenty percent died of PCa in the twenty year interval and most of the rest to the indignities of aging. That means that those who actually survived twenty years were a small proportion of the whole treated group and far below the 80 percent "survival" that appears, at first glance. Dying of some other cause is surviving cancer. The more who die of other causes reduces the number who will ever die of Prostate cancer.
This study reveals that, in statistical analyses, "The longer you live , the longer you will live".
Posted 6/17/2011 3:01 PM (GMT 0)
I had my second opinion at Mayo and have read other papers published by Mayo along these lines. Keep in mind that the statistics are not based on a randomized study. They are based on Mayo experience only. However, it is still encouraging for some.

Here is a link to an older article on the same subject.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/04/050411112637.htm

There is a more recent study and paper titled "Surgical management of high risk prostate cancer: The Mayo Clinic Experience" that is available at Elsevier website but I believe there is a fee for this one.

Don
Posted 6/17/2011 6:37 PM (GMT 0)
I still consider it a bonus!!!!
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