Extensions and applications of loss in life expectancy for cancer patients

The prognosis following a diagnosis of cancer, or other diseases, is often measured using survival proportions.

Recently, however, there has been an increased interest in presenting other measures of patient survival, that are easier to interpret and can give a better understanding of the impact a diagnosis has on an individual’s life span.

I have previously developed such methods, namely methods for estimating the life expectancy for cancer patients and the loss in life expectancy (LLE) compared to cancer-free individuals. To further enhance the usefulness of the measures, further extensions are needed.

The aim of this project is to further develop and apply the methods, specifically toCombine causal mediation analysis and LLE to quantify the impact of potential drivers of socioeconomic differences in survivalIncorporate uncertainty in general population mortality in the estimation of LLEInvestigate assumptions in survival extrapolation for estimation of LLEThe developed methods will be applied to cancer registry data, to answer research questions of clinical and public health importance.

For example, to investigate socioeconomic inequalities in survival of patients with malignant melanoma and colorectal cancer, to estimate the LLE for hematological cancers with an indolent disease course, as well as for patients diagnosed with malignant melanoma at a young age. The methods have potential to be used also in other disease areas.