Interpreting Cancer Survival Rates

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Abstract
Survival rates are most often used to evaluate the effectiveness of therapy in curing cancer (cure usually is defined as survival for .gtoreq. 5 yr). However, survival rates should not be used as a sole or primary measure of progress in cancer control, because factors unrelated to the efficacy of treatment play an important role in the determination of those rates and their trends. If cancer control is related to how many people develop and die from cancer, then progress can better be measured by the use of incidence and mortality rates.