Ending Cancer Treatment: One Patient's Choice

July 24, 2007 — -- For a quarter century, Irene Stark had stood by the operating table as a nurse, watching over patients in triumph and tragedy alike.

"I'd been there 25 years, and I've seen the good and the bad," she said.

So when her doctor came in to talk to the 82-year-old Arizona woman in June 2006 about her own need for surgery to excise her cancer, she understood just how risky the procedure would be.

But once she understood the scope of her prognosis, she decided it was time to give up the fight.

Tangled within the crucial blood vessels leading to her heart, Stark had a tumor about half the size of a deck of playing cards.

"The day he told me I had cancer, I had chest X-rays done," she said. "And when I saw the size of the lesions and so forth, I looked at him and I smiled — and I said, 'Well, I guess the party's over.'"

"I think he was hurt more than I was."

From that point forward, Stark refused conventional treatment, opting instead to enjoy the remaining days of her life as best she could.

"When they told me that I had the cancer, they asked me if I wanted an oncologist," Stark said. "I said no — and they were surprised. I said I would rather leave it to a higher power."

More than 1.4 million Americans are expected to be diagnosed with cancer this year. And while most will look to the ever-improving arsenal of medical interventions to battle the disease, many will opt to forgo or end treatment.

Some, like Stark, will choose not to have treatment soon after their diagnosis. Others will make a choice similar to that made by Tammy Faye Messner, who chose to opt out of a particularly aggressive course of therapy after enduring its grueling side effects for years.

Messner, the former wife of disgraced televangelist Jim Baker, died Saturday after a more than a decadelong bout with colon cancer that had recently spread to her lungs. She was 65.

In May she announced in a note on her Web site that she had decided to cease her treatment regimen. The ravages of the disease were readily apparent when a frail Messner, reportedly weighing less than 70 pounds, appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live" earlier this month.