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  3. The good news made headlines nationwide: Deaths from several kinds of cancer have declined significantly in recent years. But th

The good news made headlines nationwide: Deaths from several kinds of cancer have declined significantly in recent years. But th

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问题     The good news made headlines nationwide: Deaths from several kinds of cancer have declined significantly in recent years. But the news has to be bittersweet for many cancer patients and their families. Every year, more than 500000 people in the United States still die of cancer. In fact, more than half of all patients diagnosed with cancer will die of their disease within a few years. And while it’s true survival is longer today than in the past, the quality of life for these patients is often greatly diminished. Cancer—and many of the treatments used to fight it—causes pain, nausea, fatigue, and anxiety that routinely go undertreated or untreated.
    In the nation’s single-minded focus on curing cancer, we have inadvertently devalued the critical need for palliative care, which focuses on alleviating physical and psychological symptoms over the course of the disease. Nothing would have a greater impact on the daily lives of cancer patients and their families than good symptom control and supportive therapy. Yet the National Cancer Institute(NCI), the federal government’s leader in cancer research and training, spent less than one percent of its 1999 budget on any aspect of research or training in palliative care.
    The nation needs to get serious about reducing needless suffering. NCI should commit to and fund research aimed at improving symptom control and palliative care. NCI also could designate "centers of excellence" among the cancer centers it recognizes. To get that designation, centers would deliver innovative, top-quality palliative care to all segments of the populations the centers serve; train professionals in medicine, nursing, psychology, social work, and other disciplines to provide palliative care; and conduct research.
    Insurance coverage for palliative and hospice care also contributes to the problem by forcing people to choose between active treatment or hospice care. This "either/or" approach does not readily allow these two types of essential care to be integrated. The Medicare hospice benefit is designed specifically for people in the final stages of illness and allows enrollment only if patients are expected to survive six months or less. The benefit excludes patients from seeking both palliative care and potentially life-extending treatment.
    That makes hospice enrollment an obvious deterrent for many patients. And hospices, which may have the most skilled practitioners and the most experience in administering palliative care, cannot offer their services to people who could really benefit but still are pursuing active treatment.
    It is innately human to comfort and provide care to those suffering from cancer, particularly those close to death. Yet what seems self-evident at an individual, personal level has not guided policy at the level of institutions in this country. Death is inevitable, but severe suffering is not. To offer hope for a long life of the highest possible quality and to deliver the best quality cancer care from diagnosis to death, our public institutions need to move toward policies that value and promote palliative care.
This text is mainly about______.
选项 A、improving cancer research in the U.S.
B、reforming insurance coverage for cancer patients
C、understanding different options for cancer treatment and care
D、reducing the suffering of cancer patients
答案D
解析 属主旨思想题。文章第一段指出现状：对于癌症治疗而引起的负面症状通常没有得到合理的治疗或者根本没有得到治疗。第二、三段指出国家要加强姑息治疗研究以减轻患病治疗过程中生理和心理上的症状的必要性；第四、五段介绍了晚期病人收容所治疗的保险计划；最后一段总结上文，再次强调要重视并且推动姑息治疗。由此可见，全文都围绕着如何推动姑息冶疗、减少癌症病人痛苦这一中心。因此，选项D正确。选项A、B、C都是文中细节，不能概括全文。
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