Informed Consent, Cancer, and Truth in Prognosis

Abstract

...The national survey conducted by Louis Harris for a presidential commission on bioethics in 1982...found that 96 percent of Americans wanted to be told if they had cancer, and 85 percent wanted a "realistic estimate" of how long they had to live if their type of cancer "usually leads to death in less than a year." On the other hand, fewer than half the physicians surveyed said they would either give a "straight statistical prognosis" (13 percent) or "say that you can't tell how long [the patient] might live, but stress that in most cases people live no longer than a year" (28 percent) if the patient had a "fully confirmed diagnosis of lung cancer in an advanced stage." The country's most recent important case involving informed consent,