Survival rate

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In biostatistics, survival rate is a part of the the survival analysis, indicating the percentage of people in a study or treatment group who are alive for a given period of time after diagnosis. Survival rates are important for prognosis, for example if a type of cancer has a good or bad prognosis can be determined from its survival rate.

Patients with a certain disease can die directly from that disease, or from an unrelated cause such as a car accident. When the precise cause of death is not specified, this is called the overall survival rate. Doctor's often use mean overall survival rates to estimate the patient's prognosis. This is often expressed over standard time periods, like one, five and ten years. For example, prostate cancer has a much higher one year overall survival rate then pancreatic cancer, and thus has a better prognosis.