BMJ  2007;334:915 (5 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.39199.440104.3A

Letters

Candour on unfunded treatments

Ignorance is a public health issue

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Marcus indicates the importance of candour in outlining the choices available to individuals.¹ However, there is also the effect on wider issues of public health and the availability of treatment options from which patients can choose.

Unacceptable radiotherapy waiting times have been highlighted by the Royal College of Radiologists for over a decade.² They have now started to improve, but the last audit in September 2005 still showed that over half our patients wait longer than one month for curative treatment. What is probably not made clear to patients is the impact that this can have on their prognosis. A systematic review has shown that for breast cancer a wait of longer than eight weeks carries a 60% increase in the risk of local recurrence over five years.³ For postoperative radiotherapy of head and neck cancer, a delay of six weeks increases the risk of local recurrence 2.6-fold.³

Worse than . . . [Full text of this article]

Royal College of Radiologists, London W1N 4JQ

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

Related Articles

For patient or population?

Fiona Godlee
BMJ 2007 334: 0. [Extract] [Full Text]

Should you tell patients about beneficial treatments that they cannot have? Yes

Robert Marcus
BMJ 2007 334: 826. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Waiting for radiotherapy

D Dodwell and A Crellin
BMJ 2006 332: 107-109. [Full Text] [PDF]