Study: are cancer patients’ hopes for chemo too high?

(Reuters) – At least two thirds of people with advanced cancer believed the chemotherapy they were receiving might cure them, even though the treatment was only being given to buy some time or make them comfortable, according to a U.S. survey. Researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that 69 percent of patients who were terminally ill with lung cancer, and 81 percent with fatal colorectal cancer, did not understand that their chemotherapy was not at all likely to eliminate their tumors. …