Are unable to "delay" their deaths an important event cancer patients

lancer patients can voluntarily delay their death to participate in an important personal or "Journal of the American Medical Association" thus calling into question an idea long popular.

Health professionals who care for dying cancer patients are often marked by some patients, it seems to cling to life and challenge of medicine to attend an important event for them, and eventually die immediately after.

Studies have also revealed a peak of mortality associated with significant religious and social events.

To get to the bottom, Donn C. Young and Erinn M. Hade, researchers at the University of Ohio in Columbus, analyzed the death certificates of 1,269,474 people died between 1989 and 2000. Cancer was the leading cause of death for 309,221 of them.

By measuring the total number of cancer deaths in the week before and the week after one of the three events of religious significance, secular or personal they had selected (Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthday), the researchers found no difference significant mortality between the two periods.

However, "women dying of cancer were more likely to die during the week before their birthday than in that which followed," note the authors, who did not observe such a difference in men.

They also did not find a significant decrease in the number of deaths during the week before an important event.

"Although we can not eliminate the possibility that a small number of dying cancer patients have the ability to control the time of death, the proportion should be much lower than that mentioned so far," the authors conclude.