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Deciding to stop or continue palliative chemotherapy or targeted agent: AFSOS guidelines Volume 21, issue 6, Novembre-Décembre 2015

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Authors
1 Département de soins de support,
centre Léon Bérard,
Lyon
2 Département de soins de support,
Institut Curie,
Paris
* Tirés à part

Withdrawal or not chemotherapy for patients with advanced cancer is a daily dilemma in oncology practice. Nevertheless, it is still a difficult decision to make as much as for patient than for oncologist medical team. French Association of Supportive Care in Oncology (Afsos) has supported guidelines elaboration by a multi-disciplinary and multi-professional team work. This concrete tool can help decision making, and has been established from published studies analysis and international or national recommendations. First medical and psychosocial characteristics are presented that should entail questioning about chemotherapy. Then ethical and legal context are presented as well as optimal decision making process. Lastly, individualized and adapted communication principles are explained. Althought this guideline has been established mainly with studies in oncology, field of application includes patients with hematologic malignancies as well.