Assessing the Impact of Prognostic Factors on the Survival Time of Cancer Patients: Cox Proportional Hazard Model

Background: Cancer is deathful disease and caused by uncontrolled cell growth. Several prognostic factors are responsible for survival time of cancer patients. The study assess the impact of influential factors affecting survival time. Methods: This study consisted of 263 cancer patients who were referred to Khulna Medical College Hospital between May 2016 and November 2017. Survival curve (Kaplan-Meier) is used for comparing the survival function and cox- proportional hazard model is also used for finding the hazard ratio of different prognostic factors. Results: The prevalence of death due to cancer in this study was found 48.7%. Smoking habit, treatment types, surgery, cancer stage, hopeful and anxiety level are statistically significant at 5% level of significance. But only betel nut is significant at 10% level of significance. Conclusions: A challenge for cancer control is effective communication of risk information for specific cancers like as developing country Bangladesh. The government should take steps to control the prognostic factors associate with cancer for ensuing the health facility