The New York Times: "In a study that sheds new light on the effects of end-of-life care, doctors have found that patients with terminal lung cancer who began receiving palliative care immediately upon diagnosis not only were happier, more mobile and in less pain as the end neared — but they also lived nearly three months longer. The findings, published online Wednesday by The New England Journal of Medicine, confirmed what palliative care specialists had long suspected. The study also, experts said, cast doubt on the decision to strike end-of-life provisions from the health care overhaul passed last year. … In the three-year study, 151 patients with fast-growing lung cancer at Massachusetts General, one of the nation's top hospitals, were randomly assigned to get either oncology treatment alone or oncology treatment with palliative care — pain relief and other measures intended to improve a patient's quality of life. They were followed until the end of 2009, by which time about 70 percent were dead" (McNeil, 8/18).