(Reuters) – the terminally ill cancer patients are less

likely to receive aggressive treatment as the

chemotherapy in their last two weeks of life if they speak with

their doctors about how they want to die, according to a study

in United States.

the analysis, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology,

he followed 1,231 people with lung or advanced colon cancer

who died in a period of 14 months, within one study more

broad about the disease.

researchers interviewed patients or their

caregivers about if patients had talked to their doctors

of their treatment at the end of life, and if so,

when there had been the conversation.

treatment that tries to keep alive patients

terminals is usually expensive and can not improve their quality of life

or your comfort. also means more time in the hospital, in

place of in house or in a residence.

“aggressive treatment at the end of life for patients

concrete it is not necessarily bad, it is just that most of

patients who recognizes that you dying does not want to receive

that kind of attention”, said the Director of the study, Jennifer

Mack, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

Mack and his colleagues also found records

doctors in search of conversations about the end of life and

treatments and hospital income you received the

sick in their last month of life.

team found that most of the patients – 88 by

cent – had had conversations about his death, but more than

onethird of those talks occurred less than a month before

that “died the patient, when probably his health already

was deteriorated. nearly two-thirds of the talks

they occurred with patients in the hospital.

almost half of the participants received treatment

aggressive to prolong their lives, according to the team of Mack.

on the contrary, those who had spoken about his death more

one month before his death they had between 50 and 60 per cent

less than likely to receive that extra treatment that the

patients who postponed those talks or not had them in

absolute.

patients and caregivers who said having spoken of the issue

with doctors they were almost seven times more likely to end

in a unit of terminally ill than those who remembered not

have held talks about death.

“”Many patients don’t want to (aggressive treatment) but

do not recognize that they are dying or that this is relevant for

them”, explained Camilla Zimmerman, head of palliative care

in the network of health of the University of Toronto.

“sooner you try these things, more options you have. If

you expect too much, you end up having these conversations with

someone whom you don’t know, who you just find, in a

impatient context”, noted.

Zimmermann, who did not participate in the study, believes than ever

is too early to talk about the preferences of the

patient at the end of his life, although it can be uncomfortable.

“believe that people are afraid to raise this conversation go

to make him die”, commented. “actually have these

conversations going to protect them from a result that do not want to

to the” “endgültige, hinzugefügt.