The Lancet recently published a correspondence letter about US presidential candidate John McCain’s health. The senator from Arizona has had problems with skin cancer and melanoma, and there is much debate of whether he is still fit enough to stay in office.

The correspondence letter was written by Dr. John Alam of Cambridge, MA. Dr. Alam is a registered democrat who has officially contributed finances to the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Republicans firmly believed that McCain is ready to occupy the White House, while others say that if he’s elected McCain could die and leave it all to republican VP Sarah Palin.

A careful analysis of McCain’s past health status suggests a 12% per year mortality risk over the next two years. The study used the Schuchter model to predict McCain’s health condition. But there are contentions.

As asserted in Medical News Today, “The weakness of this model [Schuchter], however, is that it was designed in an era that did not use sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy to indicate whether the cancer had spread. Mr. McCain, in fact, did have SLN biopsy, and the result indicated that the cancer had not spread. This additional knowledge improves Mr. McCain's health prospects, and the prognostication has adjusted according to findings that show SLN-negative patients (McCain) to have half the mortality risk than SLN-positive patients.”

“If we assume that this trend is maintained long-term,” responds Dr. Alam, “McCain's mortality risk due to melanoma is better but not eliminated, remaining at 6% per year.”