Cancer Patients Must Navigate Maze of Care
If you or anyone you know has been through any sort of cancer treatment recently, chances are you were given varying opinios by several medical practitioners? If so, you are not alone, as many cancer patients seem to be lost in haze of confusing medical terminology and differing opinions from several doctors.
With around 1.4 million new cases of cancer due in 2008, you would expect the opinions and knowledge to be somewhat standard. Unfortunately, every case if different and there are many variables at play that a customized treatment set is needed. Do all doctors pay this much attention to each cancer patient? Very doubtful; as there just are not enough specific cancer specialists to go around in my opinion.
Regardless, the best defense is a still a good offense, so taking care of your body and eating right is still a great idea. But, if the worst should happen and you end up developing cancer, it will quite possibly take a decent dose of leaning and aggressiveness to battle through to the other side.
The first doctor gave her six months to live. The second and third said chemotherapy would buy more time. A fourth offered to operate.
Karen Pasqualetto had just given birth to her first child last July when doctors discovered she had colon cancer. She was only 35, and the disease had spread to her liver. For the past year, she and her relatives have felt lost, fending for themselves in a daunting medical landscape.
This year, there will be more than 1.4 million new U.S. cases of cancer, and 559,650 deaths. Only heart disease kills more people.
Cancer can be overwhelmingly complicated to treat - more than almost any other disease. Patients need not just one doctor, but at least three: a surgeon, and specialists in radiation and chemotherapy. Doctors do not always agree, and patients may find that at the worst time in their lives, when they are ill, frightened and most vulnerable, they also have to seek second opinions on biopsies and therapy, fight with insurers and sort out complex treatment options.
”It’s patchwork, and frustrating that there’s not one person taking care of me who I can look to as my champion,” Pasqualetto said recently in a telephone interview from her home near Seattle. ”I don’t feel I have a doctor who is looking out for my care. My oncologist is terrific, but he’s an oncologist. The surgeon seems terrific, but I found him through my own diligence. I have no confidence in the system.”
The decisions can be agonizing, in part because the quality of cancer care varies among doctors and hospitals, and it is difficult for even the most educated patients to be sure they are receiving the best treatment.
”Here it is, a country with such a great health system, with so many different breakthroughs in treatment, but even though we know things that work, not everybody who could benefit gets them,” said Dr. Nina Bickell, an associate professor of health policy and medicine at the Mount Sinai medical school in Manhattan.
Death rates from cancer have been dropping for about 15 years in the United States, but experts say far too many patients receive inferior care. Mistakes in care can be fatal with this disease, and yet some people do not receive enough treatment, while others receive too much or the wrong kind.
”It’s quite surprising, but the quality of cancer care in America varies dramatically,” said Dr. Stephen Edge, the chairman of surgery at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo. ”It’s scary how much variation there is.”
Read more at the Register-Guard.