PHYSICAL indicators, not psychological ones, best predict how long a patient with terminal cancer is likely to survive.
How a patient鈥檚 psychological state affects their life expectancy has been the subject of much debate in medical circles. Cancer patients and their families often firmly believe that their frame of mind is key to survival. But the evidence for this has been murky.
Antonio Vigano at the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal and his colleagues studied over a thousand people who had recently been diagnosed with incurable cancer of the lung, breast, digestive tract and genito-urinary system. A person with terminal cancer will typically survive between a few weeks and six months from the time of diagnosis. The team assessed how advanced the tumour was, the severity of physical symptoms and the patient鈥檚 psychological state, such as whether they were anxious or depressed.
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They found that neither the state of the tumour itself nor the psychological state of the patient predicted how long he or she would live. 鈥淚nterestingly, for patients close to dying, that information is useless,鈥� says Vigano. Instead, the severity of physical symptoms, such as nausea, weakness and difficulty in breathing, were the best indicators that life would soon come to an end (Cancer, DOI: 10.1002/cncr.20472). He hopes that his work will help health professionals be open with patients about their life expectancy so that the person can seek palliative care and put their affairs in order.