When doctors withdraw cancer treatment

I first met my patient, a former truck driver, in 2009, when he was in his mid-50s and had just been diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia, or A.L.L. Often when my patients first learn that they have acute leukemia, they ask me: "Do I have the good one?" But the truth is, once a person enters his or her fourth decade of life, cure rates for all acute leukemias are similar. Unlike children with A.L.L., who epitomize the success stories of advances in cancer therapy, with cure rates that approach 90 percent, only about 40 percent of adults with acute leukemias are cured.