What is the Disease Control Rate in Oncology?

Last week I came upon a new term in the cancer literature: the Disease Control Rate. The DCR refers to the total proportion of patients who demonstrate a response to treatment.

In oncology terms: The DCR is the sum of complete responses (CR) + partial responses (PR) + stable disease (SD).

Another way of explaining it: Some people with cancer have measurable, growing tumors. For example, a man might have a sarcoma with multiple metastases in the lung that are evidently progressing. If the patient starts a new treatment and the lung mets don’t shrink but stop getting bigger, that might be considered a stabilizing effect from the therapy, and his response would be included in the DCR.
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