Overall survival is a term that denotes the chances of staying alive for a group of individuals suffering from a cancer. It denotes the percentage of individuals in the group who are likely to be alive after a particular duration of time. At a basic level, the overall survival is representative of cure rates.
5-year rates are reported for many cancers including high grade lymphomas because those who survive 5 years are quite likely to be cured of their disease. In some slow growing and low grade malignancies like follicular lymphoma where late relapses are common, the 10 year overall survival is more representative of cure rates.
'The 5-year overall survival for stage IIA Hodgkin lymphoma is 80% when treated with ABVD followed by involved field radiation.'
This means that of all patients of Hodgkin Lymphoma in the reported group 80% were alive at 5 years.
