Disease-free survival (DFS) denotes the chances of staying free of disease after a particular treatment for a group of individuals suffering from a cancer. It is the percentage of individuals in the group who are likely to be free of disease after a specified duration of time. Disease-free survival rates are an indication of how effective a particular treatment is.
Very often, two treatment strategies are compared on the basis of the disease-free survival that is achieved in similar groups of patients. Disease-free survival is often used with the term overall survival when cancer survival is described.
'The 2-year disease-free survival for stage IIA Hodgkin lymphoma is 80% when treated with a new combination of drugs.'
This means that after this particular treatment, about 80% of those treated are likely to be free of disease at 2 years.
