A new study finds that half of cancer patients received chemotherapy
in their final months of life, even though the therapy, which can cause
nausea, vomiting and other grueling side effects, had no chance of
curing them.
Doctors often prescribe chemo to people in the end
stages of cancer in the hope that the drugs will shrink patients' tumors
and make them feel better, said study co-author Holly Prigerson,
co-director of the Center for Research on End-of-Life Care at Weill
Cornell Medical College in New York.
Her new research, however,
found no evidence that chemo improved patients' quality of life. For the
healthiest, least disabled patients, quality of life actually got worse
after chemo, Prigerson said. The study of 312 patients, published in JAMA Oncology, included only people expected to live six months or less.
"People
put a lot of stock in treatment and they tend to overestimate the odds
that treatment will work," said Timothy Quill, a professor of medicine,
psychiatry and medical humanities at the University of Rochester Medical
Center, who wasn't involved in the new study. "There is a real
potential for harm here and making quality of life worse."
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