When the medicine is more bitter than the disease
This conclusion was made by American scientists from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, after conducting a number of studies in this area.
Is it always necessary to carry out chemotherapy in a patient with end-stage cancer? It is generally believed that this procedure will prolong the patient's life for several weeks or months, but the quality of this life will be lower. American experts were convinced that more than half of patients with incurable cancer who received chemotherapy soon died in intensive care units connected to ventilators and other devices, and not surrounded by relatives at home, as they wanted.
It turned out that such patients were also much less likely to discuss with their doctor the question of how exactly they would like to die. The same patients with incurable cancer who refused a course of chemotherapy did it consciously, because oncologists explained to them all the possible side effects of such treatment. The results of the study by American specialists are published in the British Medical Journal (Wright et al., Associations between palliative chemotherapy and adult cancer patients’ end of life care and place of death: prospective cohort study; the press release of the Study shows more hospital deaths and invasive care for dying cancer patients who receive chemotherapy is published on the Dana website-Farber Cancer Institute – VM).
"Passing away is a very important and sensitive topic in a conversation between a doctor and a patient," says study author Dr. Alexi Wright. – However, most doctors do not want to discuss it. Especially with young patients who may assume that once the doctor talked to them about possible death, he gave up. We observed 386 incurable patients. It turns out that the youngest, well-off, educated and optimistic people often agreed to chemotherapy."
On average, all those who took part in the study died within 4 months. At the same time, those who did not receive chemotherapy lived as long as those who received it.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru14.03.2014