Episode Details

Reduced treatment for three kinds of cancer can make life easier for patients without hurting results, doctors reported recently at the world’s largest cancer conference.

减少三种癌症的治疗可以让患者的生活更轻松，而不影响治疗效果，医生们最近在世界上最大的癌症会议上报告。

The findings are part of a long-term move toward studying whether doing less surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation can help patients live longer and feel better. The latest studies involved ovarian and esophageal cancer and Hodgkin lymphoma.

这些发现是长期研究的一部分，研究是否减少手术、化疗或放疗可以帮助患者活得更久，感觉更好。最新的研究涉及卵巢癌、食道癌和霍奇金淋巴瘤。

Thirty years ago, cancer research was about doing more, not less. In one example, women with advanced breast cancer were pushed to the edge of death with large doses of chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants. The treatment did not work any better than chemotherapy and patients suffered.

三十年前，癌症研究注重的是多做而不是少做。举一个例子，患有晚期乳腺癌的女性被大剂量的化疗和骨髓移植推到了死亡的边缘。结果这种治疗效果并不比单纯化疗好，患者也承受了更多痛苦。

Now, in an effort to improve cancer care, researchers are asking: “Do we need all that treatment that we have used in the past?”

现在，为了改善癌症护理，研究人员在问：“我们是否需要过去使用的所有治疗？”

It is a question, “that should be asked over and over again,” said Dr. Tatjana Kolevska of the Kaiser Permanente National Cancer Excellence Program. Kolevska was not involved in the new research.

这是一个“应该一遍又一遍地问”的问题，凯撒永久国家癌症卓越项目的Tatjana Kolevska博士说。Kolevska并未参与新的研究。

Often, doing less works because of improved drugs.

通常，减少治疗有效是因为药物的改进。

Dr. William G. Nelson of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine was also not involved in the new research. He said, “The good news is that cancer treatment is not only becoming mor