News Brief

As recently as the 1970s, doctors were still with-holding facts about cancer from their patients—-thinking that it would do them more harm than good.

Now a new study suggests, that, at least for elderly patients with colorectal cancer, with-holding information is what they want their doctors to do.

In the Journal of Clinical Oncology, researchers noted that doctors’ perceptions of what their elderly patients want to know may not match what they do want.

If you have an elderly cancer patient for whom you are responsible, this is an important, delicate task—-exploring what they do and do not want to know. It is also is common for very sick patients to be open to talking more one day than others.

If you get clear indications of the patient’s preferences about how much they want to know about their prognosis, pass that along to the doctor.

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