hello all hans from south australia.
i wonder whether there are any mathematical geniuses in this group, that
could tell me the odds of having survived - one soft tissue primary
cancer (liver ) and five bone metastasizes (different locations) over
the last ten years. And perhaps more to come. i cannot get any answers
from the local medical profession.
Hans
Steph - 30 Apr 2004 07:56 GMT
> hello all hans from south australia.
> i wonder whether there are any mathematical geniuses in this group, that
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> from the local medical profession.
> Hans
And you won't.
The situation you describe is so unusual that there are no large numbers of
patients on which to base stats
J - 30 Apr 2004 08:20 GMT
> hello all hans from south australia.
> i wonder whether there are any mathematical geniuses in this group, that
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> from the local medical profession.
> Hans
Hello Hans, good to hear from you again.
Keep in touch,
J
wolfgang - 30 Apr 2004 11:33 GMT
While not particularly repeatable or reliable, just for discussion
purposes you could multiply the probability of the first with the
probability of the second.
Think 6 sided die ---
The probability of rolling a 1 is 1/6.
The probability of rolling a 1 followed by rolling another 1 is 1/6 *
1/6 or 1/36.
The problem with accurately estimating the probability you speak of is
that we cannot readily estimate the sample space - that is, we don't
know all possible outcomes, so we can't _really_ guess the chance of
any given combination. The other concern is we don't know if there
are percipitating conditions. Maybe you had a certain kind of
exposure a particular number of years ago that initiated both -- so
then the probabilities would be calculated differently as they are no
longer independent events.
Think of a 2 engine aircraft. If the chance of one engine failing is
1 in 10 then the chance of both engines failing together is 1 in 100
--- unless of course the first engine failed because there is no more
fuel --- see what I mean on the common precipitating event?
Hope this helps a bit.
>hello all hans from south australia.
>i wonder whether there are any mathematical geniuses in this group, that
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>from the local medical profession.
>Hans