homehome Home chatchat Notifications


Just 5% of terminally-ill cancer patients understand the depth of their situation

Only a fraction of the cancer patients in the terminal stages of their illness fully understand their prognosis. The findings suggest many patients are "kept in the dark", even though they only have a couple months to live anymore.

Alexandra Gerea
May 24, 2016 @ 2:05 pm

share Share

Only a fraction of the cancer patients in the terminal stages of their illness fully understand their prognosis. The findings suggest many patients are “kept in the dark”, even though they only have a couple months to live anymore.

doctor

Credit: Pixabay

The study was made by researchers at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Cornell University and Weill Cornell Medicine. One of the authors, Holly Prigerson, the  Director of the Center for Research on End of Life Care at Weill Cornell Medical Center, said the results were a “shock” and highlight a grave communication problem between doctors and patients.

The doctors asked 178 cancer patients questions about their medical condition and future prognosis. For instance, they were asked “how long do you think you have to live?” or “did you have a recent life expectancy discussion with your doctor?” before and after receiving a medical scan that staged their illness.

Only five percent of the interviewed patients made statements that actually reflected the reality of their medical records before their illness was stage. As such, the rest were incapable of making a just and informed decision about their care.

“Many did not know that they were at the end-stage of their illness or that their cancer was incurable. They were basically making treatment decisions in the dark,” explained Prigerson.

The authors identified a number of roadblocks that hinder doctor-patient communication. On one hand, doctors themselves are incapable of delivering the bad news, hiding under a front of a medical jargon or even omitting the heart-shattering verdict all together to manage the patients’ hope. On the hand, patients themselves either don’t understand the prognosis or choose “not to hear” it.

“It takes a lot of conversations to find someone who can tell me – in full-colour, human, non-clinical terms – what it’s actually like to have to, on a daily basis, tell people that they’re seriously ill. Finding doctors to talk to isn’t the problem. Our conversations start promisingly enough. But somewhere along the line, everything comes through a professional filter. They become less clear, less direct, obscured in medical language, cloaked in the self-preserving bubble of the passive voice or generalised to just any doctor’s experience. “You can become upset by it but…,” wrote Chrissie Giles in an editorial for the BBC in 2015, showing this is a general problem that’s not confined to the study’s sample size or country, for that matter.

There is some good news, though. The authors of the study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found advanced cancer patients significantly improved their illness understanding after openly discussing life-expectancy with their oncologist.

“That information may also help patients prioritize how they wish to spend the last few months of their lives, some by fulfilling ‘bucket lists,” Prigerson said. “Treatment choices patients make might follow from these priorities.”

I can only begin to imagine what it must be like to learn you only have a couple of months to live, but if this is a medical reality no time should be spared to make this very clear to the patient. “Talking about these things at the current visit will have the greatest influence on patients,”  Prigerson said.

share Share

Scientists Found a Way to Turn Falling Rainwater Into Electricity Using a Simple Plastic Tube

It looks like plumbing but acts like a battery.

A Forgotten 200-Year-Old Book Bound in a Murderer’s Skin Was Just Found in a Museum Office

It's the ultimate true crime book.

Scientists warn climate change could make 'The Last of Us' fungus scenario more plausible

A hit TV series hints at a real, evolving threat from Earth’s ancient recyclers.

Archaeologists Found 4,000-Year-Old Cymbals in Oman That Reveal a Lost Musical Link Between Ancient Civilizations

4,000-year-old copper cymbals hint at Bronze Age cultural unity across Arabia and South Asia.

Trump science director says American tech can 'manipulate time and space'

Uhm, did we all jump to Star Trek or something?

How a suitcase-sized NASA device could map shrinking aquifers from space

Next‑gen gravity maps could help track groundwater, ice loss, and magma.

Experts Say Autism Surge Is Driven By Better Screening. RFK Jr Desperately Wants It To Be Something Else

RFK Jr just declared war on decades of autism research—armed with no data, a debunked myth, and a deadline.

Could This Saliva Test Catch Deadly Prostate Cancer Early?

Researchers say new genetic test detects aggressive cancers that PSA and MRIs often miss

This Futuristic Laser Blood Test May Be the Key to Beating Cancer Early

Researchers use light pulses and AI to detect lung cancer with 81% accuracy

Weirdest Planetary System Ever? Meet the Planet That Spins Perpendicular to Its Stars

Forget neat planetary orbits — this newly discovered exoplanet circles two brown dwarfs at a right angle.