I have two questions regarding stats.
1. The NHS PREDICT nomogram seems to indicate that after surgery on breast cancer, there is very little statistical improvement to overall survival when adding either hormone therapy or chemotherapy. Usually it is less than 1% and often 0.4% to 0.6%. If we take 1% at the 5 year milestone that = an extra 18.25 days of life. At 0.4% that = an extra 7.3 days of life. These extra days of life can be doubled up at the 10 year interval, so that would be an 36.5 days and 14.6 days respectively, if my arithmetic is correct.
Considering the often considerable negative side effects of these treatments is this worth those extra days? It is the cost/benefit, or quality versus quantity question!
2. Many/most of the research papers I read say that hormone therapy 'statistically reduces the incidence of recurrence' but generally also says somewhere in the analysis that H.T. does not improve O.S. overall survival. I don't quite understand this! Are they saying that if you don't take the H.T. you will have a recurrence, and thus will require intervention, but you will not die from the recurrence? So again what about the cost to benefit?
Does the benefit boil down to........ avoiding the stress and trauma of further discovery and surgery?
Am I interpreting all this correctly?
D
