Three quarters of physician aided deaths in Oregon are in patients with cancer

Three quarters of patients who died with doctors’ help in the US state of Oregon had cancer, says an analysis of data from the state since it became the first to legalise physician aid in dying.

The analysis, published in JAMA Oncology,1 showed that the number of physician aided dying prescriptions written in Oregon has increased each year since the Death with Dignity Act became law in 1997.

A total of 1545 prescriptions were written from 1998 to 2015, and 991 …