Die Studie stellt fest, dass viele Ärzte die Wünsche von Krebspatienten ignorieren. Häufig wollen Patienten mit fortgeschrittenem Krebs einfach so angenehm wie möglich gemacht werden, wenn sie ihre letzten Tage abklingen. Viele dieser Patienten erhalten eine Behandlung, die sich darauf konzentriert, ihr Leben zu verlängern, anstatt ihre Schmerzen zu lindern.
https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2025/08/26/cancer-patients-treatment-wishes-study/7921756217134/
12 Kommentare
I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/cncr.35976
From the linked article:
**Study finds many doctors disregard wishes of cancer patients**
**Frequently, patients with advanced cancer simply want to be made as comfortable as possible as they wind down their final days.**
Doctors aren’t listening to their desires, a new study indicates.
**Many of these patients are receiving treatment focused on extending their lives rather than easing their pain**, researchers reported Monday in the journal Cancer.
In fact, they are twice as likely to say they’re receiving unwanted life-extending care than patients with other critical illnesses, results show.
Unfortunately the culture can be to treat at all costs from the perspective of Doctors. Sometimes financial losses occur with patients stopping treatment (like in the US), which creates a terrible conflict of interest.
Human ATM’s. The American healthcare system at work baby!!!
Not surprised. I had to report my dad’s hospice nurse for trying to withhold pain meds. „God wants each of us awake and aware of our loved ones as long as we can be. These just put him to sleep.“
So even in end of life care, you have people who will ignore patient’s wishes for their own agenda/beliefs.
I find that so fascinating working in a hospital and all providers seem so burnt out and jaded how families refuse to make these sorts of patients comfort care. In my limited experience, more often than not it’s usually patients and/or their families who are holding on to extending the life in the face of grave expectations.
I wonder how much the patients families play into that decision too. I know sooo many people who have felt like doctors didn’t do ‘enough’ to keep their loved ones alive. And then the lawsuits start. I think most doctors would like to provide their patients with compassionate, comfortable treatment options but fear the repercussions. I hope one day we get to a place, at least in the US, where we aren’t so consistently and vicious fighting against natural death.
This has not been my experience in clinical practice, if anything I often bring up a transition to comfort focused care and am frequently met with resistance, push back, and a desire by patients (often their families) for longevity-directed care. Obviously this is just my anecdotal experiences. But the devil lies in the details of the survey and HOW patients were asked the two questions:
Would you prefer either
1.) Medical care that focuses on extending your life as much as possible, even if it means having more pain and discomfort? OR
2.) medical care that focuses on relieving your pain and discomfort as much as possible even if that means not living as long?
Who would rationally pick number 1 over 2? Who wants suffering? The whole point of palliative chemotherapy is to not only extend life but to relieve suffering and **improve quality of life which in some instances includes pain.** When you are posed with a survey that gives you the option of living longer and suffering versus option 2, most would pick number 2 – which still encompasses philosophies entrenched in providing palliative chemotherapy, I think this is a flaw in the survey design. What we do as oncologic providers is not so grey.
Given the survey methodology I’m not sure I personally am convinced of its results
Weird because in my experience, oncologists cannot wait to make patients palliative.
Human euthanasia is not legal but extending their suffering at all cost is. Even cats and dogs are treated better in the end of their lives than humans.
Doctors needs to keep patients alive: most of the times for very good reasons, and sometimes this will ovveride the patients wishes, hence their „disregard“ feeling.
Plus, the elephant in the room of the sick conflict between healthcare and business, sorry for those who can’t see this happening.
Plus, the weird religious presence and influence: this should be illegal, no matter what religion.
Honestly a lot of this comes down to how messy end-of-life care really is. Even if a patient says they’d prefer comfort over aggressive treatment families often push doctors to “do everything possible” because letting go feels like giving up.
Doctors aren’t just acting on their own either they’re working in a system that rewards intervention (financially, legally and culturally) far more than it rewards stepping back.
On top of that, the way these surveys are framed suffer longer vs. live shorter but comfortable is a bit misleading.
Palliative chemo for example isn’t always about more suffering sometimes it does bring symptom relief or a small survival benefit.
But nuance gets flattened into a binary choice which doesn’t really reflect what happens in practice.
Article is paywalled. Abstract says, « post hoc cross-sectional analysis of baseline survey responses« .
So I am unclear how the question was asked, if these patients HAD advanced directives that were ignored vs NOT questioned by their physicians prior to starting treatment vs WERE questioned but « wanted their cancer treated ».
As an anesthesiologist every week I am involved in surgeries that patients (and their families) want that I think has little long term benefit and potentially even harm for the patient. The number of late 70, 80+ year old patients who want CPR is crazy (you are in your 80s, we provide effective CPR that likely breaks a ton of your ribs, you are on a ventilator for days to weeks, your course is going to be poor even if you are in the 10-30% we do successfully resuscitate).
Fortunately in Canada we do have access to MAID, medical assistance in dying, and many are choosing to leave their mortal coil on their terms, comfortably, with family at their sides.