When your life expectancy is ten years or less. Or so say the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force: From the guidelines What do you think of this? Is it appropriate to set limits on screening for a life-threatening disease based on expected life expectancy?
No. That is because people live to different ages so that if they find the cancer at say age 78 the person could live to be 105 or older if they remove the cancer in time. If they don't that person could die within say 5 or 10 years if not treated.
If you are going to die within the next few hours or days, then I would say it isn't worth treating, but other than that I would seek treatment until I actually died. Especially if I really wanted to continue living.
I'd say when it pisses all over your quality of life. For example I would rather be dead than tetraplegic. But other than that I would want treatment even if there was only a slight chance of surviving.
