Issues in Informend Consent from Patients with Advanced Gastrointestinal Cancer

Yousuke Seo, Takao Saito, Hideo Baba, Shunji Kohnoe, Hirotsugu Tomoda

Department of Gastroenterological Surgery, National Kyushu Cancer Center

A questionnaire survey on informed consent (IC) was conducted among patients with advanced gastrointestinal cancer as well as among hospital staff. Of all the patients informed of their disease, 90.7% positively accepted IC, 48% wanted IC given in a terminal stage and 65.9% wanted to know the prognosis of their disease. However, 28.5% stated astonishment at IC and 16.2% replied that their emotional wound had not healed yet. On the other hand, in 68.6% of patients with advanced gastrointestinal cancer who were told the true diagnosis, 97.6% positively accepted direct IC. Among doctors, 84% reported that they told the patients the true diagnoses. The patient wanted precise information about their disease. More than 75% of them wanted all information given directly to them, not to their family. There was considerable discrepancy between patients and hospital staff about satisfaction with the present status of IC. Several issues in IC remain to be considered, such as whether IC should be obtained from all patients, whether all information should be given, and how to deal with a patient's veto of IC.

Key words
informed consent, advanced gastrointestinal cancer, telling true diagnosis to cancer patients

Reprint requests
Yousuke Seo Department of Surgery, National Kyushu Cancer Center
3-1-1 Notame, Minami-ku, Fukuoka, 815 JAPAN

Accepted
June 12, 1996

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