If you’re diagnosed with metastatic cancer, it means the disease has spread from where it originally started. Examples include breast cancer that has metastasized to the bones, or lung cancer that has spread to other organs such as the liver. While the condition cannot be cured, it can be managed with treatment to keep symptoms and cancer growth under control. This may require long-term treatment and changes in your normal daily activities.
Knowing your prognosis can help you plan for the future, including making decisions about whether to participate in research studies and other medical trials that might improve your chances of living longer. A prognosis is a prediction of how well a person will do and how they’ll feel after they undergo certain treatments. It can change over time, depending on how your body responds to the drugs and other treatments you receive.
Survival rates give you an idea of how many people with the same type and stage of cancer survive a certain amount of time after being diagnosed. However, these rates can’t tell you if you’ll live or not. They’re an estimate based on data gathered from thousands of people with that type and stage of cancer in the United States. They may not reflect newer methods of detecting or treating your specific type and stage of cancer, such as HER2 targeted therapies, bisphosphonates, and immunotherapies.
There are a number of factors that can affect your prognosis, such as the size and location of the tumors (whether in bones or soft tissue), the type of cancer, the grade (how abnormal the cancer cells look under the microscope), and how fit you are. Age can also play a role, since older patients tend to have lower survival rates than younger patients.
If your cancer has already metastasized, it can be hard to predict how long you’ll live. But your doctor can evaluate how the disease is progressing and recommend a treatment option to manage it. Often, people with metastatic cancer have periods of stability when the treatment they’re receiving is working well, and then periods of progression, when their cancer grows or starts to spread.
Your life expectancy can also be affected by your general health and how you’re managing any other conditions you have, such as heart disease or diabetes. Having other health conditions can make it more difficult to cope with the side effects of chemotherapy.
Researchers have found that using a machine learning model can better predict life expectancy than a physician’s estimate based on limited predictor variables. They looked at data from 14 600 cancer patients who received palliative radiotherapy for metastatic disease and compared results from a machine learning model with those of physicians.
The model was able to accurately identify patients with LE ranges of 3 months and >1 year, with the most accurate predictions being made for patients with liver-only or bone-only metastases. It was also found that a patient’s Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status was significantly associated with LE, as was prior history of hospitalizations in the 3 months before palliative RT.
