2018 ASTRO: SABR-COMET: High-dose radiation therapy substantially improves survival in patients once thought to be incurable

ASTRO: American Society for Radiation Oncology; SABR-COMET: Stereotactic Ablative Radiotherapy for Comprehensive Treatment of Oligometastatic Tumors.

Follow-up

«Monitoring a person's health over time after treatment. This includes keeping track of the health of people who participate in a clinical study or clinical trial for a period of time, both during the study and after the study ends [1]», «(...) in order to observe changes in health status or health-related variables [2].»

Bibliographic references:

[1] National Cancer Institute. NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms. https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/follow-up. Accessed November 21, 2018.

[2] Last J. A Dictionary Of Epidemiology. 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2001:72.

Disease-free survival (DFS) or relapse-free survival (RFS)

In cancer, the length of time after the end of primary treatment for cancer and that the patient survives without any signs or symptoms of that cancer. In a clinical trial, measuring the DFS is one way to see how well a new treatment works [1].

It includes local, regional, or distant recurrence and death due to any cause.

Bibliographic references:

[1] National Cancer Institute. NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms. Available at: https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/dfs. Accessed November 21, 2018.

Overall survival (OS)

«The length of time from either the date of diagnosis or the start of treatment for a disease, such as cancer, that patients diagnosed with the disease are still alive [1].» It is «the process of locating research subjects or patients to determine whether or not some outcome of interest has occurred [2].»  It includes any cause of death.

Bibliographic references:
[1] National Cancer Institute. NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms. Available at: https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/overall-survival. Accessed November 21, 2018.
[2] Everitt B, Skrondal A. The Cambridge Dictionary Of Statistics. 4th ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2011:170.

Classification for long-term survival in oligometastatic patients treated with ablative radiotherapy

CI: confidence interval; OS: overall survival; #: number of.

CI: confidence interval; PFS: progression-free survival.

Bibliographic reference: Hong JC, et al. Classification for long-term survival in oligometastatic patients treated with ablative radiotherapy: A multi-institutional pooled analysis. PLoS One. 2018 Apr 12;13(4):e0195149. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0195149.