Life expentancy without treatment

rwj · New User Joined: 25 Apr 2006 Posts: 3

First let me be clear, I do not have cancer, but pancreatic cancer killed my brother last December. He was diagnosed around June with Stage IV, went through chemo, etc., but nothing helped.

He survived about six months after being diagnosed. If he had not received any treatment, no chemo, nothing, and all the problems associated with treatment, would his life expectancy have been any shorter? Longer?

How about other cancers? Colon cancer, bladder cancer, lung cancer, etc., etc. Once symptoms appear and a diagnosis is made, what is the life expectancy if the patient receives no treatment?

No one seem able to answer that question.

mikes · Senior User Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 143

The answer to this depends on the type of cancer, the stage, and the individual patient's overall health. The individual patient's health would include what is known as comorbidities. These include diabetes, high blood pressure, non-ambulatory and others. The medical profession refers to the case where the patient stays home and refuses treatment as BSC (best supportive care).

http://www.nccn.org has a huge amount of info on recommended treatment options based on the factors I have mentioned. They show treatment flow charts for all types of cancer and all stages of disease. For example, in their chart for a person with Stage IV NSCLC and certain comorbidities, only BSC is recommended.

On the other hand, treatment for certain cancers at early stages have a relatively good cure rate using standard treatments.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed has thousands of articles on medical subjects including the subject of your question.

Here again, it depends on all of the factors that I mentioned in my first paragraph, and additionally on certain alternative treaments which may be the subject of a particular study or trial. One that comes to mind is melatonin vs BSC and melatonin vs chemo, etc.

In the area that I am most familiar with, NSCLS Stage IV, many argue that BSC alone or with melatonin or PSK is better than radiation/chemo since the disease is incurable and the treatment itself takes a toll. The more comorbidities, the more likely the NCCN flow chart will recommend against chemo.

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