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Cancer Patients Suffer Through Futile Treatments BY MARINA HUTCHINSON, ASSOCIATED PRESS
New research being released at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual meeting in Chicago suggests three out of four cancer patients younger than 65 get aggressive treatment during their last month of life. (June 6) AP Two year old Mira listens to recordings her Dad, Joe Clark, made for her when he knew he was dying from color cancer. “He was told he was stage 4 when we were just a month pregnant so everything about that became about making it to the day that she was born,“ said his widow Amanda Evans Clark. Clark started chemotherapy in 2011 and stopped treatment in September of 2014. His widow Amanda says when to stop was the hardest decision. He died two months later when Mira was 11
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months old. “He looked at me and he said you know, she’s a baby and I’d almost rather her not remember this and not remember me than her be four or five and have to lose her Dad,” Amanda said. Medical guidelines advise against harsh, painful treatment like chemo and radiation for dying cancer patients. But new research suggests three out of four patients younger than 65 get aggressive treatment in the last 30 days before dying. “The overuse of aggressive care at the very end of life in cancer patients is recognized as one of the most important issues in all of oncology,“ said Dr. Ronald Chen, a UNC oncologist. Experts say that dying patients should get comfort care instead. One of the
reasons patients keep fighting is that they don’t feel like they are at the end of their life. “There are times when we are faced with patients who are begging us not to give up on them,“ said Dr. Monica Malec, the palliative care specialist at the University of Chicago. Amanda Clark believes her husband would have stopped treatment sooner but felt an obligation to fight for his family’s sake. “I often wondered if he wished he hadn’t done it because of all that he had to go through,“ said Amanda. Now the memories of his suffering are replaced with the soothing sounds of his voice comforting his daughter.