[Extensive palliative carcinoma operation--is it really worthwhile? What are the aims?].

This question can be approached from 3 viewpoints. 1. Economics. Here it becomes clear that calculations of cost-effectiveness-important as they are-are meaningless for any individual case. 2. Internal quality control found 138 patients (out of a total of 1200 oncological procedures performed in 1993/94) who had extensive palliative cancer operations. With an overall operative mortality of 9.4%, 59 were still alive after a mean follow-up period of 15 months; among the 49 who could be reached 60% rated their quality of life to be "satisfactory" to "very good". However, in the end, quality control figures are of little help for the individual case. 3. Selected individual case histories concerning surgery for metastases make it abundantly clear that the answer to the title's question must be found a new by each individual patient and his surgeon.