About half of people who died from cancer in Japan discussed last days with doctors

From Jiji via The Japan Times

July 3 2025

TOKYO – About half of people who died of cancer in Japan in 2021 are seen to have consulted with doctors about where they wanted to spend the end of their lives, the National Cancer Center said in a report released Thursday.

About 60% of cancer patients were able to spend their last days at places where they wished to be, the report showed. Both figures increased from the previous survey conducted in 2017 to 2018.

Active conversations between patients and doctors may have been partially due to restrictions on visits implemented by hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic, the cancer center said.

The survey was conducted with 27,000 bereaved families of patients who died of cancer or heart disease in 2021. Valid responses came from 10,900 people.

Patient age at the time of death averaged 87.5. The survey asked about the quality of life in the month before death. The cancer center analyzed the results by cause of death.

For bereaved families of cancer patients, the proportion of responses that reported cases of the patient and doctor having a conversation about where the patient wanted to spend his or her last days came to 52.9%, up from 35.7% in the previous survey.

Also in the report, 60.2% said that the patients were able to spend the end of their lives at places where they wished to be, up from 47.9%.

By contrast, those who said that the patients were able to spend the time with less pain fell by 4 percentage points to 37.3%.

Bereaved families who said that they could not visit much for a meeting at the hospital or care facility due to restrictions on visits stood at about 60% to 80% for all causes of death. The figure for relatives of cancer patients was 65.7%.

The share of cancer patients who chose to be treated at home to avoid restrictions on visits was 11.4%, higher than 2.6% for heart disease patients.