Percentages...

[Krokar]

We all read all the time about % which are defined for any typ of TC (Seminoma, Non-Seminoma) and Stage. But I'm wondering about one thing :
That small % of not-lucky people who has not luck to survive all this, is there a problem that cancer never goes away from them or it comes beck every time ?
Mybe I'm complicating to much,in short terms for example, for 97% cure rate does it means that that 3 percents after radiation or chemo still has cancer and it grows and grows or it means that TC came back later again in some years or monts ?


I hope you understand my question ?


Alex

[Rune]

Well, it's a good question, but I think it's hard to say with any accuracy. I'm not sure if there's any division into "subgroups" eg. from the 3% you mention in the statistics to define what went wrong.

I can only guess that a good part of the deaths is due to late recurrences, which are harder to treat. Also, some tumors might be chemo-resistant. But I haven't got enough information about it to make anything but a half-educated guess, unfortunately.