Prognosis of survival for breast cancer patients using Stata

All doctors treating patients with Breast Cancer know which key variables indicate a good prognosis and which values decrease the chances of surviving. However because of complex interactions between the variables and survival doctors cannot give an individualized prognosis to a patient. The Breast Cancer Unit at Guy's Hospital has data on just over 3000 patients, who were diagnosed between 1975 and 1999, with operable Breast Cancer, and treated with different adjuvant therapies. A system has been developed, using to Stata, to provide the doctors with graphs showing the overall survival curves (including the risk of dying from other causes) for the tumours characteristics and the treatments available for that patient. The paper will outline the steps and functions used in the analysis to produce the predictions for survival and illustrate how the patient's data are entered into a dialogue box opened via a main menu option.