Say you're over 70, and you have lung cancer. You can live a little longer if you take a single kind of chemo treatment, and the complications, such as losing all your hair and feeling like you're sick with the flu all the time, are relatively mild.
Ah, but you can do better, say some French researchers. They say you can "gain significant benefit" from aggressive, double-barreled chemotherapy. You can do every bit as well as the young people who have lung cancer.
Sure, the toxic side effects are more common. But we're told that survival rates are much higher. Even a skeptic refers to a "dramatic improvement in survival" for those getting the heavy-duty chemo. How dramatic?
Well, on average, you live six months on regular chemo, 10 months on the double whammy.
You can't expect to live a year, no matter which you choose.
It's very expensive, you can be sure. The side effects can be terrible. But you just might manage to hang on for another four months. This is what's called dramatic improvement.