ABSTRACT
Prediction of survival is a very difficult task, especially in cancer patients. There are many factors that influence survival; most of them are discussed in the previous chapters. There are host factors such as age, gender, social status, comorbidity, prior tumors, and race.Tumor factors are T-, N-, M-stage, differentiation grade, presence of keratinization, and tumor markers. Other putative prognostic factors are, for example, environmental, such as country, type of hospital, treatment delay, treatment, physician, and complications. All these factors have to be taken into account to make a proper prediction of the survival of a new individual patient.This makes the prediction of survival one of the most challenging topics in medicine.The information doctors rely on is their own experience and benchmark studies of their specialization. But is the newly diagnosed cancer patient similar to one of his/her previously treated patients and is this patient comparable to patients from published studies?
