McCain 'one in 16 chance of dying from cancer if president'
If elected US president, John McCain will have a one in 16 chance of dying from cancer each year he is in office, an expert says.
The 72-year-old senator had a high-risk skin tumour removed eight years ago.
Although there is no sign that the disease has spread, he still has a 6% per-year risk of the cancer returning to kill him, according to Dr John Alam, a US clinical trial consultant.
Mr McCain’s age and state of health has been the subject of much debate already.
His supporters insist he is fit and ready to be president. Others fear the consequences of him dying in office and vice-president Sarah Palin being handed the keys to the Oval Office.
Dr Alam, a licensed physician from Massachusetts, with 17 years experience in clinical research, carried out an evidence-based analysis of Mr McCain’s health prospects.
He said the senator’s melanoma tumour was 2.2 millimetres thick, “placing it into the second highest risk category”.
At the time of diagnosis, a standard prognostic model showed his chances of surviving 10 years to be only 24%.
Applying the same model today produced a mortality risk of 12% per year for the next two years and several years thereafter, said Dr Alam.
However, this assessment did not take into account a sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy which showed that Mr McCain’s cancer had not spread.
Research had shown that cancer patients with negative SLN test results are about half as likely to die over a three-year period as SLN-positive patients.
Dr Alam wrote in a letter to The Lancet medical journal: “If we assume that this trend is maintained long term, McCain’s mortality risk due to melanoma is better but not eliminated, remaining at 6% per year.”
Dr Alam is a registered Democrat who has made financial contributions both to the party and its presidential candidate Barack Obama.
