Your decisions are as good as the information on which you base them. Should you find yourself confronted with this diagnosis, this is a short guide with questions for your oncologist, so that you are equipped for your personal decision.
On the diagnosis
- What is my exact diagnosis?
- Is the tumour slow-growing or fast-growing?
- How long may I already have had the tumour?
- What do you think has contributed to my cancer? My diet? Environmental pollutants? Stress at work? Something else? Or is my illness genetic?
- What does a biopsy mean if it is negative, that is, if no malignant cells were found?
- What is the benefit of repeating the biopsy, for example in a year, if the first one was positive?
- Is there a risk of malignant cells spreading in the event of a biopsy or an injury to the tumour? If not, how can you be sure?
On the treatment and the medicines
- Which treatment is recommended for me?
- Which are the medicines?
- Do I have to take any other medicines as well?
- May I have a list of all the medicines I will be given?
- What are the short-term side effects?
- What are the long-term side effects?
- Do these medicines also have life-threatening side effects?
- How long have these medicines been in use?
On the aim and the outlook
- Is the treatment curative or palliative?
- If curative, what if the therapy does not work?
- How high is the chance that the disease will recur after this treatment?
- Where do you get this information / these statistics from?
- If the treatment is to be palliative... What is the point of chemotherapy and radiotherapy if they do not cure me?
- How can medicines that make me ill give me a better quality of life?
- How long do you think I will still live with this treatment?
- How long will I still live if I do not have (any further) treatment?
- What is the 5-year survival rate for my diagnosis with the treatment and if I do nothing?
- How much does chemotherapy contribute to my survival time?
- Are there studies that compare patients with and without therapy?
On chemotherapy
- Have you ever taken such a medicine yourself, to find out what it is like to take something like this?
- What would you do with my diagnosis?
- Is it true that chemotherapy can make tumours more aggressive?
- Is chemotherapy able to kill cancer stem cells?
- Can this chemotherapy trigger new tumours?
- Can my tumour cells become insensitive to this chemotherapy? What then?
On further options and on nutrition
- Do you know of any further treatment options besides those already discussed?
- What do you think of a holistic accompanying therapy?
- How should I eat during chemotherapy?
- May I continue to eat ice cream and pizza?
- Which is the best anti-cancer diet?
- Are there certain foods I should avoid?
- I was thinking of a vegetarian raw food diet. Would something like that be allowed?
- I would like to have the sensitivity of my tumour cells to chemotherapeutic agents tested. Would that be possible in my case? Could you arrange this?
- Would you arrange a pharmacogenetic test to see whether I might tolerate the chemotherapeutic agents particularly badly?
On the doctor’s experience and on support
- How many patients with this diagnosis do you treat each year?
- How many patients have been cured by it?
- Could you put me in touch with patients with whom I might talk about the therapy?
- If I undergo this therapy with you, can you also be reached outside consultation hours in an emergency?
- I would like to adjust a number of things in my life before I begin the therapy. How much time do you give me for that?
- How much time do you give me to think over my decision regarding the therapy?
- Do you believe in self-healing?
- Should I decide against treatment, would you still accompany me on my path?
- May I have a copy of all examinations and reports?