Only A Few Cancer Patients Truly Understand Their Prognosis, According To Study

Millions of people in the world can get cancer, yet very few of them are able to understand their prognosis. Researchers from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Cornell University, and Weill Cornell Medicine studied 178 cancer patients who were deemed terminally ill.

Upon interviewing these patients to see if they understood the seriousness of their disease, the study that was published in The Journal of Clinical Oncology found that few of them actually do. The patients were asked which stage of cancer they had, the status of their health, how long they have to live, and if they had a recent life-expectancy discussion with their doctors. Out of all the patients asked, only five prevent were able to accurately answer all four questions, despite the fact that 23 percent of the patients had a recent and previous discussion with their doctor about their life expectancy.

A co-author of the study and a co-director of the Center for Research on End-of-Life Care at Weill Cornell Medical College, Holly Prigerson said that it was shocking to find how few patients were able to fully understand their prognoses.

However, she did note that in some cases, patients may not fully understand their prognoses due to their physicians avoiding bluntness about their life expectancy or their lack of treatment options.

"Our point is a lot of them don't want to know, but they need to know basic information about the disease and illness and treatment options," Prigerson told ABC News. She also emphasized on the necessity of doctors telling their patients the truth - that there is nothing left to save their lives - so that they can make better decisions.

Dr. Barbara Daly of the clinical ethics program from the University Hospitals Case Medical Center understood, however, that the discussion itself can be difficult, noting that some people see the discussion as a threat, which is why they don't want to hear about it.