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Top 6 Survival Terms Used in Cancer

by Indranil Mallick, M.D.
for About.com

Updated June 15, 2007

About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by the Medical Review Board

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Have you ever read a scientific article on cancer treatment results? If you have, you must have encountered terms related to survival that left you a little bit confused. Doctors use many different survival terms to describe prognosis and treatment outcomes. Here are 6 terms commonly used to describe survival. Click on each term for an explanation with examples.

1. Median Survival

Median survival is the measure of how long individuals will live with a certain disease or treatment. The chance of living beyond the time denoted by the median survival is 50%.
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2. Overall Survival (OS)

Overall survival is an indication of the proportion of people within a group who are expected to be alive after a specified time. It takes into account death due to any cause - both related and unrelated to the cancer in question.
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3. Cause-Specific Survival (CSS)

Cause-specific survival is a term similar to overall survival. It measures the proportion of people who are expected to die due to the cancer at a specified time. Unlike overall survival, it excludes death due to causes unrelated to the cancer.
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4. Disease-Free Survival (DFS)

Disease-free survival measures the proportion of people among those treated for a cancer who will remain free of disease at a specified time after treatment.
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5. Progression-Free Survival (PFS)

Progression-free survival measures the proportion of people among those treated for a cancer whose disease will remain stable (without signs of progression) at a specified time after treatment.
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6. Event-Free Survival (EFS)

Event-free survival is a measure of the proportion of people who remain free of a particular complication of disease (called an event) after treatment that is designed to prevent or delay that particular complication.
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