31 August 2016 - Patients dying within 30 days of starting the treatment are ‘unlikely to have gained survival or palliative benefits’, say the authors of a study commissioned by Public Health England.

The study found that almost 1,400 patients in England in 2014 with either breast or lung cancer died within a month of being given chemotherapy, suggesting there was more harm rather than benefit from drug treatment.

Those who died within 30 days accounted for a small proportion of the total number given the toxic anti-cancer drugs designed to destroy tumours. Most of the patients were given chemotherapy for palliative care, with the intention of relieving cancer symptoms rather than curing the patient.

According to the authors, “patients dying within 30 days after beginning treatment [with chemotherapy] are unlikely to have gained the survival or palliative benefits of the treatment, and in view of the side-effects sometimes caused ... are more likely to have suffered harm”.

Read The Guardian article