Complex challenges for patients with protracted incurable cancer: an ethnographic study in a comprehensive cancer centre in the Netherlands

Objective Advances in oncology increasingly result in protracted disease trajectories for patients with incurable cancer. In this disease phase, patients are aware of the incurable nature of cancer although they are not yet approaching the last phase of life. We explored the challenges for patients confronted with protracted incurable cancer. Design Ethnographic study (2015–2017) based on conversations with patients, observations at a day-care unit and a selection of information from the medical records of patients who died during the study period. Setting The day-care unit of a comprehensive... Mehr ...