Patients and their family members often want to know how long a person who has cancer will continue to live. It’s normal to want to be prepared for the future. But predicting how long someone will continue to live is a hard question to answer. A number of factors, including the type of cancer, its location, and whether the patient has other illnesses, can affect what will happen.
Although doctors may be able to estimate the amount of time someone will continue to live based on what they know about that person, they might be hesitant to do so. They may be concerned about over- or underestimating the person’s remaining life span. They also might be fearful of giving false hope or destroying a person's will to live.