Impact of Treatment Refusal on Survival for Small Cell Lung Cancer

In this episode, CancerNetwork examines an article from the March issue of the Journal ONCOLOGY titled “Factors Associated With Treatment Refusal and Impact of Treatment Refusal on Survival of Patients With Small Cell Lung Cancer.” The original research article found that treatment refusal among patients with small cell lung cancer was associated with worse survival, and strategies to increase patient acceptance of the recommended treatment need to be studied further. CancerNetwork spoke with one of the authors, KM Monirul Islam, MD, of the Georgia Medical Center, to learn more about this research.

For the response perspective, CancerNetwork spoke with Jennifer Carlisle, MD, an assistant professor of hematology and medical oncology at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University. Carlisle spoke about small cell lung cancer, how treatment refusal impacts treatment of a patient, and plenty more regarding this original research.