If someone undergoes treatment for metastatic cancer that ends up failing and ends up dying....

[NNguyenMD]

in the same amount of time the cancer would have killed them, or in less time because of the treatment, do people view this as wasteful spending of medical dollars?

Worth watching...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/facing-death/?utm_campaign=homepage&utm_medium=proglist&utm_source=proglist?autoplay

[azurnoir]

1. That would actually depend on many factors

including age, general health, length of time between Dx and treatment, stage of cancer, history of remission/relapse IMO without taking those factors into account there is no "one size fits all" answer
I worked in BMT for quite awhile and saw some cases where yes it was a good use of medical dollars and other where IMO it was wasteful that applies only to cancer patients don't get me going on kids with "storage diseases" where they IMO were being used as guinea pigs at the cost of $1,000,000+ per patient

[NNguyenMD]

2. I'm confused as well...I worked a lot of ICU, and care for a lot of cancer patients on

med/surg ward as a hospitalist. I think when the treatment is clearly not working for advanced cancer, or if you're too debilitated to tolerate aggressive treatments like Chemo or radiation, its not only wasteful but harmful to the patient.

I bring up End-of-Life care when I can sense that there is nothing left that anyone can do, from a hospitalist/primary care physician perspective its difficult because most patient I speak with really need to hear it from their Oncologist, whom they have an established relationship with.

I think the program "Facing Death" also brings up a good point when they mention that breaththroughs in cancer therapy, especially Bone Marrow Transplant, would not happen if Oncologist were not aggressive to push their patients to the limit of experimental treatments.

[kas125]

3. Please continue to do so. Six years ago my mom was

diagnosed with metastatic cancer. Her doctor suggested chemo, saying it wouldn't cure her but might help them learn how to treat other people so she said yes. It made her worse, not better and she died eleven weeks after her diagnosis. The "treatment" made her sicker and unable to eat and I truly believe it shortened whatever life she had left and was most definitely a waste of money, too.

[orleans]

4. i don't think i'll watch this -- at least not now, or not yet

but my mom was diagnosed with metastatic cancer--she was told she was not a candidate for surgery but she wouldn't have had it anyway. she was told she could try chemo and she said no.

they told her she was a candidate for hospice and that she had six months or less.

she passed on a week and a half after being diagnosed; fifteen days from when she went to the er--we knew she was slowing down but honestly, until the day i phoned for an ambulance, we didn't know she was sick.