Why Are So Many Seniors Getting End-of-Life Surgery?

One in three people on Medicare have surgery in the final year of their lives, and many have surgery in their last month, according to a new study published in The Lancet.


Of the 1.8 million Medicare patients over age 65 who died in 2008, researchers found that a third had undergone surgery in the year before death and that 18% of those surgeries had occurred in the month before death. Nearly 1 in 10 had surgery in their final week. The numbers were surprisingly high, researchers said.  More

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