Is it possible to encourage hope in non-advanced cancer patients? We must try

Hope in advanced cancer patients.

Individuals diagnosed with advanced cancer frequently experience physical and psychological distress. Hope has been identified as an essential resource in the lives of people with cancer, helping them to cope during times of suffering and uncertainty. Therefore, in order to help bolster hope, health care providers require an understanding of its meaning from the perspective of advanced cancer p...

Giving honest information to patients with advanced cancer maintains hope.

BACKGROUND Oncologists often do not give honest prognostic and treatment-effect information to patients with advanced disease. One of the primary reasons stated for witholding this information is to "not take away hope." We could find no study that tested if hope was influenced by honest clinical information. METHODS We tested decision-aids in 27 patients with advanced cancer who were facing ...

Must We Value Life to Have a Right to It?

In her recent article "Death, Mis­­ fortune, and Species Inequality,"l Ruth Cigman gives clear, careful expression to an argument which seems well on its way to becomi ng a classic among opponents of animal rights. 2 Cigman's argument runs as follows: A right to X entails the right to be protected against certain actions which will result in the misfortune, or possible misfortu ne, of not-X. A ...

Reducing ovarian cancer mortality through screening: Is it possible, and can we afford it?

OBJECTIVE Ovarian cancer is a leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women. Given the low prevalence of this disease, the effectiveness of screening strategies has not been established. We wished to estimate the clinical impact and cost-effectiveness of potential screening strategies for ovarian cancer using population-specific data. METHODS A Markov state transition model to simulate t...

therapy for hbv infection in hemodialysis patients: is it possible?