Impact of self-decision to stop cancer treatment on advanced genitourinary cancer patients

This study focused on the patient's self-decision and investigated the impact of the self-decision to stop cancer treatment on their post-cancer treatment survival period and place of death. We retrospectively analyzed 167 cases of advanced genitourinary cancer patients (kidney cancer: 42; bladder cancer: 68; prostate cancer: 57) treated at the University of Fukui Hospital (UFH), who later died because of cancer. Of these, 100 patients decided to stop cancer treatment by themselves (self-decision group), while the families of the remaining 67 patients (family's decision group) decided to stop treatment on their behalf because the patient's decision-making ability was already impaired. Differences in the post-cancer-treatment survival period and place of death between the 2 groups were examined. The association between place of death and survival period was also analyzed. The median survival period after terminating cancer treatment was approximately 6 times longer in the self-decision group (145.5 days in self-decision group vs 23.0 days in family's decision group, P 
Source: Medicine - Category: Internal Medicine Tags: Research Article: Observational Study Source Type: research