Oral Cancer Survival Calculator
The Oral Cancer Survival Calculator applies to people who have recently been diagnosed with oral cancer (also known as oral cavity cancer) and are looking for information.
This is a tool that can give you survival estimates based on characteristics of your cancer and overall health. Not everyone wants to know their chances of survival. Do not use this tool if you do not want to know this information.
For best results, we recommend this calculator be used with your clinician.
Why Should You Use This Website?
This calculator uses data from the NCI’s Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Program with Medicare data to calculate survival estimates. The SEER program is the nation’s best source of population level cancer data. The calculator uses rigorous statistical methods and data on the outcomes of a large population of people with oral cancer.
The Calculator Places Equal Focus on Cancer and Other Conditions
- Many people diagnosed with cancer might be surprised to learn that they have a higher chance of dying from medical conditions other than their cancer.
- Cancer survival statistics often focus only on the cancer. The Oral Cancer Survival Calculator puts equal focus on the chance of dying of cancer and other causes.
It Considers the Impact of Coexisting Conditions on Life Expectancy
The tool includes a calculator that uses your coexisting conditions to compute what would your life expectancy be if you had not been diagnosed with cancer.
The Statistics in the Calculator are Representative of People with Cancer in the U.S.
- Estimates are available for groups that are not usually included in clinical trials (e.g., the elderly or those with significant coexisting conditions).
- The SEER data came from a large diverse population-based database, so the estimates are more reliable and representative of people with cancer in the U.S. than estimates that are based on clinical cohorts or trials.
How should you use the calculator?
This tool is designed to be used by people diagnosed with oral cancer and their clinicians. We recommend that you use the calculator during a visit with your health care professional to help ensure that the information is entered accurately. Also, your health care professional can help you to understand the results.
1
Enter information about you and the characteristics of your cancer.
2
Enter information about coexisting conditions or your general health at the time of diagnosis.
3
Generate the results: the calculator calculates the probabilities of surviving over the next one to ten years of your life.
Who should use the calculator?
The calculator produces survival estimates that are helpful for clinicians, people diagnosed with oral cancer, researchers, and policymakers. Like all prediction tools, this tool has some limitations that create uncertainties in the results. Users need to understand these limitations when using it.
The calculator is applicable to people recently diagnosed with oral cancer who have not had any other cancers and whose cancer type is squamous cell carcinoma.