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Fascinating statistics. They looked at all Glioblastoma patients that were entered into the SEER system. Over 38,000 patients, to see if survival improved over the years. They found a small increase in survival from 2000 to 2011. but no increase since then. The eye opening statistic is in the most recent years studied, 2015-2017, the average survival was only 11 months, with the 12 month survival of 45.7% and 2 year survival of 19%.
This is in sharp contrast to all of the recent clinical trials results, where even the control groups have been reporting better results. In the Optune EF-14 trial,(the best randomized phase 3 trial results ever reported for Glioblastomas), the control group survived 16 months on average, and the Optune group survived almost 21 months. To me, this means that most clinical trials do not reflect the average patients. Only a small % of patients enter clinical trials, and they tend to be the patients with the best prognostic indicators. The average patient does not enter trials, and we can't even tell if the clinical trials can be generalized to the average patient. Others may say just entering a clinical trial improves your survival, which may be true, but I think it is more likely that hospitals that run clinical trials tend to have better results even outside of the trials. So just by selecting a major medical center to treat you improves your chances of survival.
This points to the need to track all patients and see how treatments work in the majority of patients, not the special few that participate in trials. The "Promising Pathway Act" bill will accomplish that.
Correction added 12/3/21: the statistics for the EF-14 Optune trial are incorrect. That is the time from randomization to the time of death, not time from diagnosis. There was an average of 3 months from diagnosis to randomization, so the actual numbers I should have used were control group is 19 monhs survival and Optune group 24 months!