Clinical Practice Guidelines for the management of locally advanced ...

Effectiveness The extent to which a specific intervention, when used under ordinary
circumstances, does what it is intended to do.
Ejaculate Fluid produced at ejaculation, which contains sperm and secretions from
glands such as the prostate, seminal vesicles and testicles.
Evaluation A formal appraisal, using quantitative and/or qualitative data, of the
value of a project or program against a standard or set of specified
criteria. An evaluation may be done internally or by an independent
body. The purpose of the evaluation will determine whether it is
designed to assess process, outcome or impact.
Evidence Data on the effectiveness of a treatment or intervention derived from
studies that compare it with an appropriate alternative. Preferably the
evidence is derived from a good-quality randomised controlled trial, but
it may not be. In areas of medicine that do not involve a therapeutic
intervention, such as diagnosis, prognosis, aetiology and screening,
evidence constitutes knowledge derived from properly conducted clinical
or health services research.
Evidence-based guideline A statement that is based on scientific literature, explicitly documents the
process used to develop the statement, and grades the strength of the
evidence used in making clinical recommendations.
Five-year survival rate A scientific measure used to determine the success of a treatment. It
measures the number of people who are alive five years after a particular
treatment. It does not mean the patient will only live for five years after
having treatment.
General anaesthetic A drug given to stop a person feeling pain. A general anaesthetic causes
temporary loss of consciousness.
Gleason score A way of grading cancer cells. Low-grade cancers (Gleason score 2, 3, 4)
are slower growing than high-grade (Gleason scores 8, 9, 10) cancers.
The pathologist identifies the two most common tissue patterns and
grades them from 1 (least aggressive) to 5 (most aggressive). The
Gleason score is given as two numbers added together to give a score out
of ten (for example, 3 + 4 = 7). The first number is the most common
pattern seen under the microscope and the second number is the next
most common.
Grade A way of describing how abnormal the cancer cells look, and
consequently how aggressive or fast-growing the cancer is likely to be.
The most commonly used grading system is the Gleason score, which
ranges from 2 to 10 (see above).
Hazard ratio A measure of how often a particular event happens in one group
compared to how often it happens in another group, over time. In cancer
research, hazard ratios are often used in clinical trials to measure survival
at any particular moment in a group of patients who have been given a
specific treatment or a placebo. A hazard ratio of one means that there is
no difference in survival between the two groups. A hazard ratio of
greater than one or less than one means that survival was better in one of
the groups.
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Appendices