That’s
the headline of a story I’ve just reread that was written by Dennis Thompson of
HealthDay - http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/health/sc-useless-cancer-treatments-terminal-health-0622-20160607-story.html
This
news makes me wince uncomfortably.
Thompson
reports that “An analysis of insurance records found that cancer patients often
undergo chemotherapy, radiation therapy or surgery in their final 30 days.”
I’m
trying to better understand this and having trouble. Does this mean that
concerned doctors are trying to save patients right up to the last second? Or
does it mean that doctors are giving patients medicine that cannot help them,
but makes $$$ for ______ (I’ll let you fill in the blink).
Thompson
further reports that “In 2012, ASCO issued a set of guidelines for physicians
that recommended against using aggressive measures in patients with advanced
cancer who are unlikely to benefit from such treatment. Instead, doctors should
focus on easing the patient's pain and symptoms, the guidelines say.
He
also quotes Dr. Andrew Epstein, an ASCO expert in palliative care, saying,
"Much more often than not, these types of care at the end of life are not
helpful, and they are emotionally and physically harmful for patients, and
emotionally harmful to the patients' loved ones." Epstein is a medical
oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.”
To
see if these guidelines are being followed, researcher Dr. Ronald Chen - associate professor of radiation oncology at
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - and his colleagues reviewed
claims data for more than 28,000 terminally ill cancer patients younger than 65
who died between 2007 and 2014. The patients lived across 14 different states
and had been diagnosed with advanced lung, colon, breast, pancreatic or
prostate cancer.
Guess
what?
The
investigators found that between 71 percent and 76 percent of patients received
some form of aggressive care at the end of life, depending on their type of
cancer.
Somehow
this just makes me sad. Not only are these victims dying, it seems like they aren’t allowed to go
peacefully.
I
could be wrong. Maybe all of these victims want to fight to their last breadth
no matter what the odds are.
Read
the article and decide for yourself.
