Modelling Progression In Stage Iii Colon Cancer Using Survival Analysis

Iseh, Matthew Joshua

Department of Statistics, Akwa Ibom State University, Mkpat Enin, Nigeria

John, Eme Eseme

Bathurst Rural Clinical School, School of Medicine, Western Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Matthew, Michael Aloysius

Department of Statistics, Akwa Ibom State University, Mkpat Enin, Nigeria

Keywords: Progressive disease, Colon cancer, Cox Regression Analysis, Kaplan Meier


Abstract

Stage III colon cancer poses a significant challenge for the treatment and management. This study aimed to model the progression of stage III colon cancer using survival analysis and identify key predictors of survival and disease recurrence. A retrospective cohort study was conducted using data from 929 patients with stage III colon cancer. Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazards regression were used to estimate survival rates and identify significant predictors of overall survival. The results show that using the Kaplan Meier approach the probability of survival started with 67% in 1-36 months and increases with time to 88% in 37-72 months, then increases at its peak in 73-108 months to approximately 91%. The result further shows a typical Kaplan Meier property of stepwise decrement from state 1 to state 2 in each of the groups. Also, the log-rank test demonstrates an unadjusted comparison between the groups and reveals that the survival probabilities in each group are the same. In the overall evaluation, the result reveals that two parameters (number of positive lymph nodes and extent of local spread) considered in this study are significant and contribute immensely to the survival of patients.to