Palliative care for lung cancer patients in Penang Hospital.

The author, Dr S. B. Khoo, states that patients with incurable illnesses are "turned away from acute General Hospitals, and are told that there is nothing more to be done". This is untrue with respect to my own experience with lung cancer patients seen in Penang Hospital between 1988 and 2001, when I was the physician in-charge of the respiratory medical unit. The burden on inpatient workload has been documented in a study done on cancer admissions to the hospitaF during the year 1995 which showed that the commonest primary site in inpatients was lung 093/1335, 14.5% of cases). Lung cancer patients accounted for 316/2,947 admissions 00.7%) and 5,796/35,324 inpatient days 06.4%) for malignant disease3• For new lung cancer patients seen between 1995 and 2001 only 67/1,174 had surgery with a view to curative resection (5.7%)4. As of August 2002, the five-year survival was 29%. It can be inferred from this data that almost all lung cancer patients seen were incurable and almost all treatment given during hospital admissions or during outpatient consultations can be considered to fall into the realm of palliative care. The