Beyond-prognosis survivors (rather than post-prognosis), I think.

From the current issue of Cure Magazine - link follows

Learning From the Best: On Patients Who Respond Well to Cancer Treatment

Scientists are studying exceptional responders, who benefit from cancer therapies when others don't, to learn how to duplicate those results in broader groups of patients.

ERIK NESS

PUBLISHED: MAY 13, 2016

excerpt:

Understanding what makes patients exceptional responders is ridiculously complicated: A single tumor cell can contain thousands of mutations, most of which have little meaning. But somewhere in this mad scramble hides a clue — or a series of clues — which explains how the cancer runs amok. In the case of exceptional responders, there are additional clues that should explain why a particular drug works. Beyond looking at gene mutations and the problems they cause, scientists can consider changes in tumor proteins that are not associated with genetic alterations, or not easily mapped to a long list of mutations.

"Can we find a reason why these patients should be responding better than others?" asks Conley. "That's the whole crux of what we're doing." The study of exceptional responders is new, but there are a handful of studies recruiting. Adera Labs is looking to better understand the response of patients with pancreatic cancer to standard chemotherapy by comparing the genomes of exceptional responders to those of patients who respond less robustly. And the Breast International Group is considering the mechanisms of either response or resistance to systemic therapy for metastatic breast cancer, with a search for biomarkers in exceptional responders part of the effort.

The NCI began its foray into exceptional responders by delving into its own archives. While there are many stories of people unexpectedly outliving their diagnoses, the scientists were looking for more than just a happy ending: They wanted to see a response to some kind of drug. "It has to be a complete response where we would expect to see a complete response less than 10 percent of the time," Conley explains. "Or it has to be a partial response, where either a partial response lasting at least six months is seen less than 10 percent of the time, or where the response lasted three times as long as has been reported in the literature."

That's not eight out of 154, but eight so far. There is a lot of work yet to be done, followed by further study in the lab and in trials. How long before these discoveries begin to influence standard treatments? "It could be a while," warns Conley.

Sure, something really big could happen, such as the discovery of driver mutations that override less consequential genetic changes. But the breakthroughs are more likely to be incremental. "Many of us think that the more that we do this, the more we can find," she says. And it's a very young science. "We're not going to get good at it immediately."
- See more at: http://www.curetoday.com/publications/cure/2016/sp...

See more at: http://www.curetoday.com/publications/cure/2016/sp...