Blood Tests to Predict Cancer Survival

There is a routine blood test that can predict how long cancer patients in palliative care will survive, according to the researcher’s report at the ESMO Asia 2016 Congress Singapore. Lead author Dr. Yu Unenon, an oncologist at Kyoto University in Japan relates that these palliative care patients want honest and accurate prognostic information, but it needs to be sensitively shared in a way that respects their desire to maintain hope.

The patients with advanced cancer and their families must make decisions about treatment and where to spend the end-of-life as well as when to discontinue palliative chemotherapy. Ineffective …read more