Palliative Care Could Prolong Life, Reduce Suffering for Lung Cancer Patients
While many have never heard of palliative care, or even know what it means, new research published in The New England Journal of Medicine has shown that getting early palliative care, in addition to regular medical treatment, helped patients with lung cancer live three months longer when compared with patients given standard care.
In comparison, chemo can give newly diagnosed lung cancer patients an additional two to three months of life, according to study co-author Thomas Lynch, director of the Yale Cancer Center. According to the U.S.A. Today, Lynch has also stated that palliative care patients don’t just live longer, they also live better.
Palliative care is a comprehensive service that aims to relieve the suffering of people with serious illness including cancer, such as lung cancer or kidney failure, rather than focusing on curing the disease. Some patients, however, can confuse palliative medicine with hospice, a form of palliative care for people in the last six months of life.
Some forms of lung cancer can be caused by asbestos exposure. Learn more about the relationship between asbestos and lung cancer.
