Still another consideration, Dr. Yates said, and not a small one, is what the patient wants. He described a former patient, a 78-year-old woman with diabetes who had lost a leg to osteogenic sarcoma. The cancer had spread to her lungs, and she faced possible treatment with chemotherapy that would cause nausea and hair loss and carried the risk of a fatal lung infection. Her four college-educated children agreed with the doctor’s suggestion to skip chemotherapy and administer comfort care, since treating her cancer was likely to kill her.
“But she said she wanted to be treated — she was adamant,” recalled Dr. Yates, who will be leaving the cancer society for the National Institute on Aging. “To my surprise, she had a dramatic response to the treatment. Her lung tumors all but disappeared, and she lived another two years.”
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