A study in US patients with terminal cancer reveals that two-thirds have “a moderate to strong” belief that God could work a miracle to cure them.

Furthermore, patients with such beliefs do not change their view of their prognosis when their treating oncologist gives them bad news, the results show.

The findings may mean oncologists have to rethink how to help inform such patients of a poor prognosis, so they better understand the implications and make good management choices, the authors write in Cancer.

In the multicentre study, 158 patients with advanced cancer and an oncologist’s prognosis of six months’ life expectancy were assessed on their understanding of their prognosis before and after they received scan results for cancer restaging.