From the course: Everyday Statistics, with Eddie Davila

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Cancer survival rates

Cancer survival rates

From the course: Everyday Statistics, with Eddie Davila

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Cancer survival rates

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- [Instructor] For most newly diagnosed cancer patients, the first few questions that race through their heads are likely, "What are my chances of survival? "How long do I have to live?" Doctors are typically prepared to provide answers to these questions. But what do their answers mean? Perhaps, you're told you have an 80% chance of survival. Does that just mean that one out of every five people diagnosed with this disease do not survive? That sounds like a really horrible lottery. Each person draws a lot. Four live, one does not. Random chance? That doesn't really make sense when you put it that way, does it? Or how about when a doctor says, "You have approximately six months to live," does a timer start counting down? Of course not. It's a guess likely based on historical data and the doctor's analysis of this particular patient's case. The doctor's sort of bending the statistics based on her knowledge of the patient. So what do those cancer statistics and probabilities really…

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