[Life expectancy deficit (LED). A criterion for evaluating the course of malignant tumors. A statistical survey based on 70,231 malignant diseases with special reference to cases with spinal metastases].

The deficiency of life expectancy (DLE), calculated as the difference between the statistical life expectancy at a given age and the survival time with the tumor disease, is a useful measure to extend the concept of tumor malignancy. Both the evaluation of the success of the tumor treatment and the prognosis of the metastatic spread in the vertebral column can be determined with the DLE. For the 9 most frequent tumor localizations the DLE is calculated with the material of the register of cancer in the Saarland/W. Germany (N = 70,128). In an extra part, the DLE for 50 metastases of the spine is compared to the whole cases.