The evaluation of the results of cancer therapy treatment utility.

The results of cancer management are frequently presented in a way such that the only comparison that can be made between treatments is that of fixed term survival. Very few reports attempt to include an analysis of the effect of second line therapy or a comparison of the different morbidities of different treatments. Techniques now exist (one of these is the concept of treatment utility) which take into account not only the probability of the outcome of a treatment but also the quality of that outcome. To expand this concept requires research in cancer management to be directed to the production of numerical values for treatment toxicity, pain, disability and mutilation, in addition to the conventional survival rates. This paper examines the concept of treatment utility when a comparison is made between two treatments which produce differences in survival but only one of which is associated with significant permanent disability.