We have made lot of progress in the last 40 years in treatment of cancer. The survival has improved for most stages in most cancers. We still have a long way to go as nothing short of cure from cancer is what we all are aiming at. It will be even better to nip it in the bed and do not allow cancer to happen in the first place.
Let us get back to present. Each person dreads the word cancer. When one is diagnosed of it, all one wants/hopes is that he gets cured of it. We go to great lengths to get this cure. Hope is good and it is documented that hopeful people respond better to treatment and live longer.
But at the same time is it justifiable to promise cure in metastatic cases? Many metastatic patients receiving chemotherapy may take it under the false belief that it may be curative, when all that may be giving is few weeks to few months to live and in anecdotal cases few years!
An article published in NEJM, New England Journal of Medicine talks about the same. They report that 69% of patients with lung cancer and 81% of those with colorectal cancer did not report understanding that chemotherapy was not at all likely to cure their cancer.
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