Accuracy of Survival Predictions

(Ivanhoe Newswire)–- Terminally ill patients often ask doctors how long they have left to live. Somehow knowing can often help them prepare for the end. It can also help doctors and patients decide on further medical treatments or the need for hospice care. How accurate are physicians though in this guessing game? A new study shows they are often optimistic and overestimate survival time. Researchers from Australia say this study calls for better clinical models to base those predictions on.

The study examined clinical data from previous published studies to determine the accuracy of physicians. Data on 1,594 patients were included. They found doctors’ predictions for terminally ill cancer patients had a tendency to be inaccurate. They consistently overestimated the length of survival. However, they did become more accurate as the date of death got closer.

The authors of the study write, “This optimism may have serious implications for the patient in terms of inappropriate application of disease-controlling treatment and delays in referral to a hospice or palliative care.” Typically, survival of patients is 30-percent shorter than predicted.

Their findings support the need for better tools to aid doctors. The researchers say the two challenges doctors face in making predictions are making them accurate and communicating them. They say if doctors were able to improve on both patients could achieve a “good death.”

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