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Perhaps because oncologists must deliver bad news so often — or perhaps because the news is so complex and nuanced — much important research on medical communication hails from oncology. As part of a large prospective cohort study of the experiences of patients with newly diagnosed lung or colorectal cancer, professional interviewers surveyed about 1200 participants with incurable disease who had opted to receive palliative chemotherapy. Most patients were male (62%) and white (65%); surrogates served for 193 (16%) who were too ill to be interviewed.
Fully 69% of lung cancer patients and 81% of colorectal cancer patients told the interviewer that chemotherapy was “very,” “somewhat,” or “a little” likely to cure their disease. Such inaccurate…