Age is not the crucial factor in determining how the palliative care needsof people who die from cancer differ from those of people who die from other causes

A belief that the hospice philosophy is particularly applicable to younger people may account in part for the continued focus of palliative care on ca ncer patients, as it has been argued that age is the crucial factor in dete rmining how cancer and non-cancer patients differ. We conducted a secondary analysis of the data from a UK population-based retrospective survey, the Regional Study of Care for the Dying, to critically examine this propositio n. The sample comprised 2062 cancer and 1471 non-cancer deaths. On average cancer patients were younger. However, at all ages non-cancer and cancer pa tients differed significantly with, for example, different patterns of depe ndency and symptomatology. The cause of death - rather than age - is theref ore the principal difference between cancer and non-cancer patients. The de bate within palliative care on whether and how to provide services for non- cancer patients must move beyond a focus on group differences such as age b etween these and cancer patients and focus instead on understanding the var ying problems non-cancer patients experience, and addressing how best to or ganize palliative care services to meet the individual needs of these patie nts.