Is the Marginal Social Product of Oncologists Really Zero?
If the only thing that matters is whether someone has a strong support network, what's the use of physicians? From the Globe and Mail (via Ms. Eclectic):
It seems plausible to me that, ceteris paribus, quality of life as measured in this study would have some positive correlation with cancer survival at the margin. Whether that is causal or just correlational is another question; though the evidence that changes in quality of life are correlated with increased survival rates makes the variable seem to have causal impact on survival rates.
My take: people who have close friends and family members monitoring their behaviour (and caring about what happens to them) and making sure they show up for treatment are more likely to survive.
[with thanks to Jack, JB, Ms. Eclectic, and Brian Ferguson]
Doctors routinely consider factors such as tumour size, stage of the disease and other measures to predict how long a patient with cancer will survive.Holy mackanoli! "Quality of life" was more important than whether they received any treatments at all? I really doubt that. And I really doubt that the marginal product of physicians and cancer treatments is zero. Rather, I suspect, it was the case that among those patients who received similar treatment protocols, those who responded as having a better quality of life had higher survival rates.
But factors that make up a patient's quality of life — overall health, mobility, emotional stability, social support and financial resources — may make the most difference, Dr. Nicolaou and colleagues found.
... Researchers at Fox Chase and Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit studied 239 patients with lung cancer enrolled in a treatment trial involving both radiation and chemotherapy.
The study was designed to evaluate the role of quality of life as a prediction for survival. Questions included things like: "Do you have trouble taking a long walk?" or, "In the past week, did you feel irritable? Did you feel depressed?"
The researchers also analyzed classic predictors of survival such as gender, race, age, marital status, state of disease and tumour location.
Some 91 per cent of patients completed a standardized quality of life survey before treatment. All patients were followed for at least 17 months.
What they found is quality of life emerged as the most significant predictor of overall patient survival.
"We conducted two different statistical analyses including all the usual prognostic factors and either way, quality of life remained the strongest predictor of overall survival," Dr. Benjamin Movsas of Henry Ford Hospital said in a statement.
"What's more, if a patient's quality of life increased over time, we saw a corresponding increase in survival," he said.
It seems plausible to me that, ceteris paribus, quality of life as measured in this study would have some positive correlation with cancer survival at the margin. Whether that is causal or just correlational is another question; though the evidence that changes in quality of life are correlated with increased survival rates makes the variable seem to have causal impact on survival rates.
My take: people who have close friends and family members monitoring their behaviour (and caring about what happens to them) and making sure they show up for treatment are more likely to survive.
[with thanks to Jack, JB, Ms. Eclectic, and Brian Ferguson]
Category: Economics, Health and Medicine Posted on
Monday, November 5, 2007 at 12:18am
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Clearly all of the subjects received treatment. Your "whether they received any treatments at all" was not part of the experimental design.