Few cancer patients benefit from palliative chemotherapy

Only a quarter of patients feel better after having palliative chemotherapy for advanced breast cancer, a study published this week shows.

“When I first went on to the oncology wards I found it staggering that patients had their tumours measured to assess shrinkage from chemotherapy but no one was asking them if they actually felt better,” says Amanda Ramirez, professor of liaison psychiatry at Guy's, King's College, and St Thomas's medical school. …