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Practicing on the edge of oncology: when standard of care feels uncomfortable

The treatments oncologists deliver are generally based on evidence from large randomized controlled trials, consistent with practice guidelines, and congruent with the treatments selected by our peers. In this Comment, we use two scenarios to highlight the discomfort clinicians might feel when they are outliers from the guideline-recommended standard of care.

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Acknowledgements

The work of C.M.B. is supported by the Canada Research Chair in Population Cancer Care. The authors are grateful to Dr Vinay Prasad of the University of California San Francisco, who provided comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.

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Correspondence to Christopher M. Booth.

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A.M.G. has acted as a consultant of EUSA Pharma and Seattle Genetics. C.M.B. declares no competing interests.

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Booth, C.M., Goodman, A.M. Practicing on the edge of oncology: when standard of care feels uncomfortable. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 18, 673–674 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41571-021-00550-9

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