Lockerbie Bomber’s Survival Prognosis Was Unusual: It Proved Pessimistic
A patient who significantly outlives his physician’s estimate of survival is usually celebrated as a medical miracle. Not so with Abdel Baset Al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber who was granted “compassionate release” from prison because of his prostate cancer, which a physician said would likely kill him within three months.
A year later, Megrahi is alive and kicking, and today the WSJ reports on the medical mystery behind his case — namely whether his particular disease justified such a grim prognosis.
Doctors give terminally ill patients survival estimates all the time, of course. But what makes this one unusual even on the face of it is the fact that it proved pessimistic. We rece