Prasad Vinay
Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
Am J Hosp Palliat Care. 2015 Aug;32(5):477-83. doi: 10.1177/1049909114524477. Epub 2014 Feb 20.
"Cure" is an important word in oncology but its use in the published literature has not been examined. I investigated all oncology articles using cure in the title field and published in 2012. The definition of cure was examined, specifically whether or not authors use the word to connote some surviving subset of patients who go on to experience outcomes similar to age-matched, normal controls-a definition favored by researchers and employed in survival function analyses.
All articles published between January 1, 2012, and December 31, 2012, with the word cure in the title field were retrieved from Thompson Reuters' Web of Science. After exclusions, articles were read in full to examine what definitions of cure was used. Additionally, for each situation (type of cancer, stage/grade) where the word cure was used, a literature search was performed to ascertain whether there existed documented cases of cure.
Twenty-nine oncology articles used the word cure in their title in 2012. Nearly half, 14 (48%) of 29, used the term in situations (cancer type, stage/grade) currently considered incurable. Approximately one-third (34.5%) of the articles used the word consistent with the definition that, after a set period of time, some surviving subset of patients experience survival similar to normal controls.
There is heterogeneity in the use of the word cure in the literature.
“治愈”是肿瘤学中的一个重要词汇，但尚未对其在已发表文献中的使用情况进行研究。我调查了2012年发表的所有在标题字段中使用“治愈”一词的肿瘤学文章。对“治愈”的定义进行了研究，具体而言，作者是否使用该词来表示某些存活的患者亚组，这些患者随后经历的结果与年龄匹配的正常对照相似——这是研究人员所青睐的定义，并用于生存函数分析。
从汤森路透的《科学引文索引》中检索2012年1月1日至2012年12月31日期间发表的、标题字段中包含“治愈”一词的所有文章。排除相关文章后，对其进行全文阅读，以研究使用了何种“治愈”定义。此外，对于使用“治愈”一词的每种情况（癌症类型、分期/分级），进行文献检索，以确定是否存在治愈的记录病例。
2012年有29篇肿瘤学文章在标题中使用了“治愈”一词。其中近一半，即29篇中的14篇（48%），在目前被认为无法治愈的情况（癌症类型、分期/分级）下使用了该术语。约三分之一（34.5%）的文章使用该词的方式符合以下定义：在一段特定时间后，一些存活的患者亚组经历与正常对照相似的生存情况。
文献中“治愈”一词的使用存在异质性。
