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It is probably even harmful in such settings.”īut it can be very difficult for doctors to recognize exactly the point when chemotherapy goes from being useful to being harmful, said LeBlanc, who wasn’t part of the research team. “It does not yield benefits in cases where patients are already significantly debilitated, or have markers of more advanced, refractory disease. “Like any tool, it must be applied very judiciously,” he said. LeBlanc, a cancer and palliative care doctor at Duke Cancer Institute in Durham, North Carolina. Palliative chemo can have benefits for some patients, shrinking tumors, reducing pain and improving quality of life, said Dr. With better communication of the risks of chemo at such a late stage, like those found in this study, many patients would not choose it, he said. “Often these cancer treatments in this situation have more risks than benefits, and this needs to be communicated better by doctors and their teams,” he said. Epstein, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City who was not involved in the research. “It should be noted that these patients all had cancers that had already worsened on one cancer treatment and therefore these were particularly vulnerable patients,” said Dr. That compared to two percent of people not on chemo.Ĭhemo users were more often referred to hospice at the last minute: 54 percent were enrolled within one week of their death, versus 37 percent of people not on chemo.Īnd 11 percent of chemo patients died in an intensive care unit (ICU), rather than at home, for instance, compared again to two percent of those not on chemotherapy, the researchers reported in the British medical journal BMJ.

But the circumstances of their deaths were often different.įourteen percent of patients on chemotherapy had CPR or were put on a mechanical ventilator, or both, in their last week of life. Those receiving chemo survived about as long - four months, on average - as those who were not. Among 386 terminally ill cancer patients, 216 were receiving palliative chemotherapy when the study began. “My oncologist colleague was surprised because she was certain chemotherapy would be beneficial.”įor the study, the researchers reanalyzed existing data from eight outpatient cancer treatment clinics. “Those who received palliative chemotherapy, even after adjustment for their better health and quality of life and treatment preferences at our baseline assessment, were worse off,” Prigerson said. “This study arose from a bet I had with an oncology fellow who had argued the benefits of palliative chemotherapy for the dying patient,” she told Reuters Health. Prigerson worked on the new study at the Center for End-of-Life Research of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. Prigerson said that in her experience, “palliative chemotherapy” often only makes patients sicker. They often don't realize it will not cure them (see Reuters Health story of Jhere: reut.rs/1hweUoA ).

Many advanced cancer patients receive chemotherapy that is only meant to make them more comfortable. NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Terminally ill cancer patients who received chemotherapy in the last months of life were more likely to die in an intensive care unit than those who did not receive chemo, according to a new study.