For Cancer Patients, Oncologists often Have the Final Word

For Cancer Patients, Oncologists often Have the Final Word


Credit: Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels

For Terminally Ill Cancer Patients, The Final Days of Life Are Immensely Personal, Having the Choice to Continue Cancer Treatments, or to Stop Treats and Prioritize a more comfortable passing. What a patient, however, isn’t allays what they receive, according to a rutgers health study Published in the journey Cancer,

“A Patient’s End of Life is often Not a Reflection of What they want, but raather, who their oncologist Happy Happens to be,” said login s. george, a health services institteers at the rutors at these Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research, and Lead Author of the National Study.

“The Data does not indicate patient patients, but raather, but raather, more habitual or default ways of treatment patients,” Adds george, who is also a member of the cancer prevention and the CONTORL GRANTON Rutgers cancer institute, the state’s only National Cancer Institute-Designated Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Clinical Guidelines for many cancers recommend stopping chemotherapy in the final days of life as it can do more harm than benefits. But while such treatment discussions should be based on Clinical Presentation and Patients’ Preferences, Oncologists COLLD BE MAKING DECISIONS BASED On Thei their Characterist Vays of Procedeing in Such Contexts, george said.

To Assess How Oncologists Treat Treat Terminally Ill Cancer Patients, George and Colleagues at Rutgers Health Analyzed National Data from the National Cancer Institute’s Surveilance, Epidemiology and Endex Results Program. By Examining Billing Codes in Medicare Hospital Outpatent and Carrier Claims, they identified 17,609 patients from across the Country Who Died of Breast, Lung, Colorectal or Promteal Cancer for 2017 And the 960 oncologists who treated them at 388 different practices and clinics.

With this data as a starting point, the researchrs then used multiple models to estimate oncologists’ rates of prescribing chemotherapy and other systemic Caincer therapies to their dying patients in the last 9 Life. Oncologists were categorized as having “high” or “low” prescribing behavior depending on whether they prescribed to a higher or lower proportion of their passengers, Relative to their papers.

By Accounting for Variation Coming from Patient- And Practice-Level Influences, The Researchers was abled to isolate to isolate the effects that the treated oncologist ‘end-lifes.

Results showed a patient receiving care from an oncologist with a high prescibing behavior had a striiking 4.5-times higher odds of receiving cancer treatment in the Final Days of Life, Compared Whit Ai Receiving care from an oncologist with a low prescription behavior.

Additionally, individuals with breast cancer Hadds of Receiving Late-STAGE TREATMENT MATAN TREATMENT Thans Thos with Lung Cancer.

Other Findings Include:

  • Patients with Colon Cancer and Prostate Cancer Didn Bollywood from Lung Cancer Patients.
  • Black Patients Had Lower Odds of treatment in the last month of life compared with white patients.
  • Unmarried (Single, Divorced or Widowed) Patients Had Lower Odds of Receiving Treatment Than Married Patients.

Because the data was anonymized, the resultars shouldn’t identify the prescribing oncologists by name or practice. But the results indicate that despite clinical prescibing guidelines, there remains significant variations in what terriminal Ill Cancer Patients Receive at the End of Their Lives.

George said making this kind of information publicly available unilable could help better align patients’ Treatment wishes with reality.

“When we go out to eat or go shopping, we don’t just blindly pick a restaurant or randomly grab Make decisions, “George said.

“Shouldn’T Patients With Cancer Have The Same Luxury?” He added. “As health care consumers, we have a right to know about the provides that we pick.”

George said future research will examine the factors that Fuel Patients ‘And Clinicians’ Decisions Between more cancer treatments and hospital care.

More information:
Login S. George et al, Estimating Oncologist Variables in Prescribing Systemic Cancer Therapies to Patients in the last 30 days of life, Cancer (2024). Doi: 10.1002/cncr.35488

Provided by rutgers university


Citation: For Cancer Patients, Oncologists often Have the Final Word (2025, March 1) Retrieved 1 March 2025 from

This document is Subject to copyright. Apart from any Fair Dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

(Tagstotranslate) Medicine Research News (T) Medicine Research (T) Health Research News (T) Health Research (T) Health Science (T) Medicine Science

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *