Prognosis
Also known as: outlook
A doctor's best estimate of how a cancer is likely to behave and respond to treatment.
Definition
Prognosis is a doctor's best estimate of the likely course of a disease — for example, the chance of being cured, of the cancer coming back, or of living for a certain number of years. It is based on the cancer type, stage, grade, biomarkers, the patient's age and overall health, and how well the cancer is likely to respond to available treatments.
Prognosis is an average based on large groups of patients with similar disease, and it cannot predict exactly what will happen to any one individual. Many patients do far better than the statistics suggest, especially with modern targeted and immunotherapy options.
See also
- Staging — The process of finding out how large a cancer is and whether it has spread.
- Grade — A score from the pathologist describing how abnormal the cancer cells look under the microscope.
- Differentiation — How closely cancer cells resemble normal, mature cells of the tissue they came from.
- Recurrence — The return of cancer after a period of being undetectable.
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Medically reviewed by
Dr. Rehan Abdullah
Dr. Rehan Abdullah is a dual-trained clinical and radiation oncologist with over a decade of experience treating both solid tumours and hematologic malignancies. He serves as Consultant Oncologist at INMOL Hospital and sees patients at Farooq Hospital and Healthnox Medical Center, Lahore. Read full profile →
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