# Prognosis

Source: https://onco.cc/terms/prognosis/  
OnCo record `prognosis` (Term). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

The expected course of a disease: how likely it is to be cured, how long a person is likely to live, and how they are likely to feel. Always an estimate based on groups of similar patients, never a prediction for one person.

## Summary

Prognosis in cancer depends chiefly on stage, then on grade, histology, molecular subtype, and the patient's fitness and age; it is expressed as survival rates (the proportion alive at five years) or median survival, drawn from registries and trials of past patients treated with past therapies, so it lags behind current treatment. Prognostic biomarkers (Ki-67, Oncotype DX recurrence score, ctDNA after surgery) refine the estimate and, importantly, help decide who needs more treatment and who can be spared it. Distinguishing prognostic from predictive is essential: a prognostic marker says how the disease will behave whatever you do, a predictive marker says whether a specific drug will help.

## Fields

- Kind: Term
- Last checked: 2026-09-09
- Also known as: prognostic; prognoses; poor prognosis; good prognosis; favourable prognosis; unfavourable prognosis; poor-prognosis; good-prognosis; prognostic factor; prognostic factors; life expectancy; survival rate; survival rates; 5-year survival; five-year survival; 5-year survival rate

## Sources

- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prognosis
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prognosis

## Connected records

- terms: [Biomarker](https://onco.cc/terms/biomarker/), [Early detection](https://onco.cc/terms/early-detection-term/), [Grade](https://onco.cc/terms/tumour-grade/), [Incidence versus prevalence](https://onco.cc/terms/incidence-vs-prevalence/), [Median survival](https://onco.cc/terms/median-survival/), [Mortality](https://onco.cc/terms/mortality/), [Nottingham Prognostic Index (NPI), and PREDICT](https://onco.cc/terms/nottingham-prognostic-index/), [Overall survival (OS)](https://onco.cc/terms/os/), [Risk score and risk percentile](https://onco.cc/terms/prognosis-risk-percentile/), [Stage](https://onco.cc/terms/cancer-stage/), [The Brigham and Women's Hospital staging system, and why squamous cell carcinoma has two](https://onco.cc/terms/bwh-staging-cscc/)
- key papers: [Allemani 2018: CONCORD-3, global surveillance of cancer survival 2000 to 2014](https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-allemani-concord-3-lancet-2018/), [Galon 2006: the type, density and location of immune cells in colorectal tumours predict outcome](https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-galon-immune-contexture-colorectal-science-2006/)
- institutions: [Nottingham University Hospitals Cancer Centre (City Hospital)](https://onco.cc/institutions/nottingham-cancer-centre/)

---
JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/entities/prognosis.json