Absent from your entire discourse, is any notion of a good death. I've looked after people who wanted to try everything, fly anywhere, even when they weren't strong enough to sit up in bed. They didn't die well.
It has never been shown that treating cancer patients up until the time of death makes any difference to either quality of life or survival (http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-684X/10/14). Sometimes there is a tyranny about the biology of cancer that is difficult to overcome even with agents that are known to be effective, not even when you have run out of all drugs completely.
You might scoff at the notion of a good death. But then there is this trial (http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1000678). This was a trial which compared early palliative care with late palliative care involvement for patients with metastatic lung cancer. They were otherwise treated with standard therapy/clinical trials/whatever was available. Astonishingly, those patients that received early palliative care had less treatment overall and lived nearly 3 months longer - by getting less treatment, and focusing on quality of life. If there was a new drug that helped people with lung cancer live 3 months longer, it would be revolutionary.
On the basis of this evidence and my personal experience, I believe there is potential harm in taking the attitude of wanting to try everything by default. This attitude may be right for some people, but for others, it may shorten their lives for no benefit and leave them and their families unprepared for the inevitable end.
There is no escape from the notion that the latest drug might just turn everything around. It is certainly true that when a drug like this comes along, there will be some people who miss out and die because they or their doctors didn't try hard enough. But how much potential harm can you justify because of this tiny, tiny risk?
It has never been shown that treating cancer patients up until the time of death makes any difference to either quality of life or survival (http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-684X/10/14). Sometimes there is a tyranny about the biology of cancer that is difficult to overcome even with agents that are known to be effective, not even when you have run out of all drugs completely.
You might scoff at the notion of a good death. But then there is this trial (http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1000678). This was a trial which compared early palliative care with late palliative care involvement for patients with metastatic lung cancer. They were otherwise treated with standard therapy/clinical trials/whatever was available. Astonishingly, those patients that received early palliative care had less treatment overall and lived nearly 3 months longer - by getting less treatment, and focusing on quality of life. If there was a new drug that helped people with lung cancer live 3 months longer, it would be revolutionary.
On the basis of this evidence and my personal experience, I believe there is potential harm in taking the attitude of wanting to try everything by default. This attitude may be right for some people, but for others, it may shorten their lives for no benefit and leave them and their families unprepared for the inevitable end.
There is no escape from the notion that the latest drug might just turn everything around. It is certainly true that when a drug like this comes along, there will be some people who miss out and die because they or their doctors didn't try hard enough. But how much potential harm can you justify because of this tiny, tiny risk?