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Markov Modeling Of Breast Cancer, Chunling Cong, Chris P. Tsokos

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Previous work with respect to the treatments and relapse time for breast cancer patients is extended by applying a Markov chain to model three different types of breast cancer patients: alive without ever having relapse, alive with relapse, and deceased. It is shown that combined treatment of tamoxifen and radiation is more effective than single treatment of tamoxifen in preventing the recurrence of breast cancer. However, if the patient has already relapsed from breast cancer, single treatment of tamoxifen would be more appropriate with respect to survival time after relapse. Transition probabilities between three stages during different time periods, 2-year, …