SAD NUMBER CRUNCHING

I understand why the Edwards family wants to put their best face forward, but it seems like Elisabeth's cancer is incredibly serious. Not even a day off? Quotes from an article on Slate at

http://www.slate.com/id/2162548/


"When she was initially diagnosed, Edwards' breast cancer was treated with a combination of chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation, to which she seemed to respond well. The details of her cancer have not been made public, but we might expect roughly 90 percent of women with this diagnosis and with an apparently good response to treatment to be disease-free five years after treatment. Unfortunately, Edwards is among the roughly 5 percent of women in whom the disease reappeared more rapidly.

The recurrence was discovered almost by chance. She cracked a rib, and when she was X-rayed to evaluate that injury, the radiologist who read her film detected a "spot" on another rib, on the other side of her chest. The development of the new lesion in a location distant from the original tumor—a "metastasis"—dramatically worsened her prognosis. Edwards' likelihood of survival for five more years dropped from perhaps more than 85 percent to about 20 percent. And her illness went from one that might have been cured to one that might be, at best, controlled."

"In spite of the generally gloomy statistics for metastatic breast cancer, it is hard to predict how things will go for Elizabeth Edwards. Some patients, though never fully cured, still have a relatively good outcome, with their disease reasonably well-controlled, a high quality of life, and a good long time of survival. This group is a minority, to be sure. But let's hope Edwards is in it."