Patient decision making

Abstract

A 73-year-old man requests a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test from his primary care physician, but the physician does not believe the test is in the patient's best interest. A woman with metastatic colon cancer has continued to progress on standard therapy. She asks her oncologist whether she should enter a Phase I trial or, instead, enter a hospice program. A woman with a strong family history of breast cancer, and a BRCA-1 mutation, asks her genetic counselor to explain the pros and cons of a prophylactic mastectomy. A 55-year-old man with myelodysplasia comes to a cancer referral center to see whether they think a bone marrow transplant is feasible in someone his age. © 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.