Author(s):
Dijk, M.R. van
Date (Issued):
2007-03-07
Keywords:
testicular cancer
Abstract:
Patients with similar characteristics can be grouped together in a prognostic classification to estimate a patients prognosis and guide treatment decisions. The topic of this thesis is methodological aspects of defining prognosis classifications. We specifically looked at patients with advanced testicular cancer, who are currently classified into good, intermediate and poor prognosis groups according to the International Germ Cell Consensus (IGCC) Classification. The IGCC classification aims to guide treatment decisions, it is used as a stratification method for clinical trials. Two main topics are investigated: (1) the validity of the IGCC classification: are the assumptions underlying the IGCC classification method valid and can the survival estimates of the IGCC classification be generalised to currently diagnosed patients, (2) alternative methods of defining prognostic groups, especially for poor prognosis patients. Validity of the IGCC classification Issues in the development of prognostic classifications are discussed, and background on testicular cancer and the development of the IGCC classification is given in Chapter 1.