Study shows aggressive end-of-life treatments lead to needlessly horrific deaths in middle-aged, terminal cancer patients

Friday, June 17, 2016 by: L.J. Devon, Staff Writer
Tags: cancer treatments, medical care, terminal patients

---

(NaturalNews) As terminal cancer patients approach the end of their life, they are aggressively abused by methods of treatment that destroy their quality of life. As cancer is given authority over their lives, patients are often given a timeline of how long they will live, but that's not all. Once they are cursed, patients are often persuaded and pushed into succumbing to aggressive treatments of chemotherapy and radiation that make their final months miserable and agonizing.

A new report finds that three quarters of young and middle-aged Americans (younger than 65) with terminal cancer are being taken for all they have. Their last months of life are being made more miserable than they ever were. Insurance records show that in the last thirty days of these patient's lives, there is tremendous suffering as they are aggressively pushed into unnecessary chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery. Many of these aggressive "treatments" are just milking the patients for all they are worth, while ravaging whatever health is left in their bodies. The data shows that one third of patients are dying in hospitals, detached, suffering, with no energy left in their bodies.

The study, presented to the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago, should be a wakeup call to the medical system and to all the oncologists who currently push the same one size-fits-all treatments that are causing great suffering.

Chemotherapy and radiation destroys patients' final month of life

How can cancer cases be better assessed and differentiated to better determine if chemotherapy and/or radiation is even worth the cost? There should be greater integrated, nutrition-based efforts to help patients recover and heal, especially for young and middle aged cancer patients who have detected the cancer early. There are ways to help the body recover internally at the cellular level without having to lean solely on ravaging chemical treatments.

Likewise, when cancer patients are at the end of their road, greater efforts could be made to improve their quality of life, instead of keeping them on aggressive, destructive treatments that clearly aren't working. Better end-of-life planning is essential and the life-altering consequences of chemotherapy should be discussed, especially in a patient's final weeks of life.

Lead researcher Dr. Ronald Chen said, "Additional efforts are critically needed to improve end-of-life care for patients with terminal disease, to ensure that the care provided meets the goals and preferences of patients and their families."

"Much more often than not, these types of care at the end of life are not helpful, and they are emotionally and physically harmful for patients, and emotionally harmful to the patients' loved ones, says Dr. Andrew Epstein Epstein, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

The study investigated the lives of 28,000 terminally ill cancer patients struggling in their final month. Aggressive treatments were used on 71 to 76 percent of the patients in their final month of life. Chemotherapy was used up to 33 percent of the time, and radiation, up to 21 percent. Biopsy or surgery was performed up to 31 percent of the time. Oncologists just don't know when to stop doing something when it's clearly not working.

It's not that oncologists have ill intentions as their patients suffer through their final days. Health care professionals often don't know any better or they may be afraid to work outside the parameters of the medical culture they have pledged allegiance to. How they care for patients isn't really care at all, (as patients suffer more and more) but it may be all they know how to do since the education they have received and the philosophies that have been ingrained in their brains are limited and faulty.

But it's not all the fault of the medical culture. Patients at the end of their lives may be pressured by their loved ones to seek all the aggressive "treatment" the system can give.

As more people suffer and die due to a combination of cancer causes, failed chemotherapy and radiation, it's apparent that a shift in how we care for people is needed. That begins with the quality of the food we eat (ban glyphosate and atrazine now!) and requires better methods of treatment (through optimizing detoxification and utilizing therapeutic nutrition).

Sources include:

http://www.chicagotribune.com