A selection of notable quotes about prognosis and prognosis research.  

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“Patient trust was essential in the healing process. It could be won by a punctilious bedside manner, by meticulous explanation, and by mastery of prognosis, an art demanding experience, observation and logic’”

Galen, 2nd Century AD

(as quoted within: Porter, R. (1999). The greatest benefit to mankind : a medical history of humanity from Antiquity to the present, London, FontanaPress)

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“The (prognostic factor) literature is probably cluttered with false-positive studies that would not have been submitted or published if the results had come out differently’’ 

Simon R (2001) Evaluating prognostic factor studies. In: Gospodarowicz M. Kea, editor. Prognostic factors in cancer. Wiley-Liss. pp. 49–56.

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“As a consequence of the poor quality of research, prognostic markers may remain under investigation for many years after initial studies without any resolution of the uncertainty. Multiple separate and uncoordinated studies may actually delay the process of defining the role of prognostic markers’’

Altman DG (2001) Systematic reviews of evaluations of prognostic variables. BMJ 323: 224–228.

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“Prediction models for covid-19 are quickly entering the academic literature to support medical decision making at a time when they are urgently needed. This review indicates that proposed models are poorly reported, at high risk of bias, and their reported performance is probably optimistic. Hence, we do not recommend any of these reported prediction models for use in current practice.’’

Wynants et al. (2020) Prediction models for diagnosis and prognosis of covid-19: systematic review and critical appraisal. BMJ 369:m1328.

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“Methodologic standards for the design, conduct, analysis and reporting of prognosis research are required. Training is needed for the clinicians, policymakers, and payers who use prognostic
information.’’

Hemingway H (2006) Prognosis research: Why is Dr. Lydgate still waiting? J Clin Epi 59: 1229-1238.

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“After 10 years of research, evidence is not sufficient to conclude whether changes in P53 act as
markers of outcome in patients with bladder cancer…. That a decade of research on P53 and bladder cancer has not placed us in a better position to draw conclusions relevant to the clinical management of patients is frustrating’’

Malats N, et al. (2005) P53 as a prognostic marker for bladder cancer: a meta-analysis and review. Lancet Oncol 6: 678–686.

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“Categorising continuous predictors is unnecessary, biologically implausible and inefficient and should not be used in prognostic model development’’

Collins GS et al. (2016) Quantifying the impact of different approaches for handling continuous predictors on the performance of a prognostic mode. Stat Med 35: 4124–4135