Hospice Care Overlooked for End-of-Life Cancer Care
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End-of-life cancer care, whether decided by doctor or patient, favors intensive treatment that may be shortchanging a person’s chance of greater comfort in their dying days, Dartmouth College researchers said.
Too many advanced-cancer patients receive invasive hospital treatments such as feeding tubes while they are dying instead of being directed to hospice and other palliative care that could ease suffering, the Dartmouth Atlas Project said today in a report. The group looked at data for Medicare, the U.S. health plan for the elderly, that showed an increase in cancer patients in intensive care units in the last month of life.