How can discussing treatment goals improve prostate cancer care? Dr. Daniel Sentana Lledo explains why it’s essential for patients to clearly communicate their priorities and preferences, allowing for more effective collaboration with their physician to choose the most appropriate treatment plan.
Dr. Daniel Sentana Lledo is a genitourinary medical oncologist in the Lank Center for Genitourinary at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Learn more about Dr. Sentana Lledo.
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Transcript
Katherine Banwell:
Why is it important for patients to speak up about their treatment goal preferences with their care team?
Dr. Daniel Sentana:
Yeah. So, I think as I was just alluding to, this is a longitudinal relationship we’re going to have with a patient. We know that whether we’re treating your cancer and it’s going to go away for the rest of your life, or it’s something that you’re going to be living with for a long time, we want to understand who you are, where you’re coming from, what your values are, what’s your support, and what is important out of this?
And for many people, the answer is, “I want to beat cancer. I want to be cured. I want to eradicate it. Make it go away.” And I would say certainly we share that goal many times, but there’s other patients where they might feel like the side effects, or the cost, the burden of this treatment may not be worth it, and that does not mean we cannot help them. It may mean that we don’t give the most intense or more the strongest treatments that we have, but for the most part, we can help patients whatever point they are in whatever mindset or whatever they think is really what should guide their care.
So, certainly any patient – and I would like to think that I elicit this for my patients when I see them. But if you see your providers, especially when you meet them the first time, I think it’s really important to set the stage and say, “I want to get this cancer knocked down as much as possible.” Or, “You know what? I’m going to live with this with the rest of my life, so I just want to make sure I don’t have a lot of symptoms from it.” Or “I’ve lived a long, healthy life, and this is something that I can monitor, but I don’t think we need the most aggressive treatment for it.” So, it’s all about meeting people where they’re at.