Achievable goals and relevant endpoints in cancer treatment.
The goals of cancer treatment range from eliminating cancer to prolonging the time to recurrence, controlling local disease, and palliating symptoms. For many cancer patients, disease elimination is an unrealistic treatment goal at the time of diagnosis due to the presence of metastatic disease and the lack of effective systemic treatment. For other patients, treatment options with similar survival expectation but differing side effects may complicate treatment selection. There is a clear need for new cancer treatment endpoints to be developed so that the effects of cancer treatment may be appropriately monitored. Some recently developed cancer treatment endpoints are described, and their use in clinical trials is advocated.
Department of Cancer Medicine, University of Sydney, N.S.W., Australia.
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Tattersall
D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy*; D010166:Palliative Care