A group of oncologists, patients and advocates is meeting in Kingston, Ont., this week to discuss a revolutionary idea in cancer treatment: maybe oncologists should encourage less treatment for patients in order to focus on quality of life and care.
Dr. Christopher Booth, a medical oncologist and health services researcher at Queenâs University and the co-leader of the very first Common Sense Oncology Symposium, believes cancer patients are often given treatments that, in the long run, only offer very small benefits.
âMost of the treatments that we strongly support are the standard treatments: surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and new cancer medicines,â Booth told CTVâs Your Morning on Tuesday. âBut increasingly, some of our new treatments might not even help people live any longer or improve their quality of life. They might shrink tumours on a CAT scan for a couple of months, but that's a very different outcome than what many patients and their families would want.â
Booth said many patients want to have honest conversations and make informed decisions about how they spend their time, especially patients with terminal diagnoses, but often those conversations arenât happening in oncology medicine.
âWe're not proposing we have the answers for what a patient would want,â Booth said. âWe just think we need to have a better conversation so that patients have the information they need to make the decision that's best for them.â
Booth described three major problems with how the oncology field currently treats cancer patients in a Queenâs Universityâs presentation called Research Talks, where researchers at the university give âTED-style talksâ using âinnovative researchâ to students, faculty and community members.
The first problem Booth outlined is that people from worse socio-economic groups or poorer countries and regions are more likely to develop âworse cancers with worse outcomes.â
The second is that many cancer treatments do not provide a sufficient âtime trade offâ for patients, as patients often spend their remaining time undergoing treatments instead of âbeing with their loved ones or having experiences.â
Lastly, Booth described the astronomical cost some of these cancer treatments can tally up, which affects âboth patients and the overall medical system.â For example, he said one drug costs over $100,000 and causes âterribleâ side effects and âonly improves survival by 10 days.â
The symposium will feature talks with 30 oncologists and patient advocates from 15 different countries.
âWe thought it was time to have an open conversation about these things and work with patients to understand how we can best give them the information they need to make the best decisions possible.â
The Canadian Cancer Society says 1.5 million people in Canada âlive with or beyondâ cancer today.