DOCTORS must ensure that cancer patients know what is wrong with them
and which treatments are available, a watchdog body said yesterday.
The stress of receiving bad news, coupled with medical jargon, too
often left patients muddled, said the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin
published by the Consumers' Association.
Consultants and GPs should use tapes and diagrams and explain things
in simple language so that cancer patients suffering pain and depression
know what is happening to them, it said.
''Most patients with cancer want to be fully informed about their
disease and its treatment, with many welcoming a chance to share in
decision-making,'' the bulletin went on.
''Playing a more active part can help the mental state of some
patients.
''Doctors' attitudes towards giving information to individual patients
can often be biased, and information about treatments may need to be
given in several ways to avoid this.
''The diagnosis of cancer alters the attitude to trade-offs of risk
against benefits so that patients with life-threatening illnesses may
accept treatment at any price.
''It is all the more important, therefore, to offer treatments that
have a reasonable chance of improving the quality and/or length of
survival.
''If current treatments are likely to be ineffective, participation in
a trial of a new drug may sometimes keep hope alive for a patient
desperate for something to be done.''
Patients who wanted a second opinion should be encouraged to get one,
although the new NHS internal market system might make this more
difficult if it meant referring a patient outside the local district.
* The bulletin also calls for an oral vitamin supplement which can
save the lives of newborn children to be licensed.
Tiny babies do not have Vitamin K, but without it nine out of 100,000
newborn infants in the UK would have deficiency bleeding -- a condition
that can occur up to the age of six months.
Although the case for giving babies the vitamin appeared overwhelming,
a study of babies born in Britain between 1965 and 1987 suggested link
between childhood cancer and injected Vitamin K. There was no suggestion
of a link if the vitamin supplement was given by mouth.
A later Swedish study of 1.4 million babies born between 1973 and 1989
found no link and the UK study was criticised.
The bulletin said it believed that giving the injectable formulation
by mouth was justified until the question of the cancer risk was
resolved or a properly licensed oral preparation was available.
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