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We are grateful for the shared insights surrounding chemotherapy near the end of life and potentially unexpected implications in the US setting of current practice. In the UK, palliative care specialists in NHS hospitals get involved in the care of oncology patients with a prognosis and life expectancy under 6 months regardless of whether they are treated with chemotherapy, to improve the total quality of life and facilitate advanced care planning. So this approach providing hospice care at a rather earlier stage makes the potential implications surrounding palliative chemotherapy in the terminal months less unexpected, and more manageable.
Competing interests:
Working in an Inpatient Unit- District Hospice in UK
17 March 2014
SATYADHAR MITTA
Staff Grade - Palliative care
Hartlepool and District Hospice
23 Nightingale Close, Hartlepool, Co. Cleveland, UK TS26 0HL
Re: Chemotherapy near the end of life
We are grateful for the shared insights surrounding chemotherapy near the end of life and potentially unexpected implications in the US setting of current practice. In the UK, palliative care specialists in NHS hospitals get involved in the care of oncology patients with a prognosis and life expectancy under 6 months regardless of whether they are treated with chemotherapy, to improve the total quality of life and facilitate advanced care planning. So this approach providing hospice care at a rather earlier stage makes the potential implications surrounding palliative chemotherapy in the terminal months less unexpected, and more manageable.
Competing interests: Working in an Inpatient Unit- District Hospice in UK