Hello and thanks for your enquiry,

I can appreciate that you would want to know more at this difficult time.

Patients are discussed at length between different doctors and other allied health professionals at MDT meetings. If a patient has extensive cancer in the colon, and are not able to undergo rigorous cancer treatments, or are unlikely to benefit from them, then it would be appropriate to refer them on to the care of the palliative care team. A summary letter following the MDT meeting should then be sent to the patient's GP, and also the patient, if they are copied in to receiving any communications from the hospital.

Staging a cancer by doing additional scans, will not add greatly, to being able to predict someone's outlook (prognosis), as this is not that easy to do in reality. The referral to palliative care would still be necessary, with or without further scans, and the aim of palliative care is to monitor the patient and control any symptoms that may arise. Once a patient has been assessed by the palliative care team, then a management plan is put in place. Palliative care teams have expertise in noting any further physical changes in patients, and liase closely with the patient and their family in the community. They can explain to the family how they think the patient is doing overall, and provide a steer on the current situation.

Macmillan Cancer Support have information on care and support if you have advanced-cancer which outlines services available to patients.

I hope that this reply helps,

Kind regards,

Vanda