Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To calculate conditional survival estimates for patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma. DESIGN: We constructed separate multivariate survival models adjusted for 7 clinicopathologic factors for patients who did and did not undergo radical surgical resection. PARTICIPANTS: Patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma diagnosed between 1988 and 2005 included in the Surveillance Epidemiology End Results cancer registry. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Internet browser-based calculator to compute personalized survival estimates. RESULTS: Conditional survival probabilities increased over time for all patients with pancreatic cancer regardless of patient characteristics, disease stage, or treatment. For patients with resected stage I, II, or III disease, 3-year conditional cancer-specific survival increased from 38% to 70%, 19% to 54%, and 8% to 39%, respectively, over the 3 years following diagnosis. The relative improvement in survival over time was larger for patients with advanced disease. A customizable, Internet browser-based clinical calculator was implemented that may be used to compute in real time personalized conditional survival estimates based on an individual's unique clinicopathologic profile. CONCLUSIONS: Conditional survival estimates provide a more accurate--and typically more optimistic--assessment of prognosis for patients with pancreatic cancer than traditional survival estimates that apply only at the initial diagnosis.