Abstract
To relieve human suffering—the motto of our profession—extends beyond our current patients to those in the future. The progress of medicine depends on medical research. Our discussion will be limited to clinical trials with critical ethical issues due to the active involvement of patients. From the patients’ standpoint, the essential demands are: a scientifically sound research plan; free choice to enter a trial or receive routine treatment; understandable informed consent; and, in the case of randomized trials, physician’s equipoise (sincere uncertainty) regarding preferences to the proposed treatments. Despite all efforts, some ethical costs are inevitable: in comparison to routine treatment, clinical research often includes additional diagnostics, the collection of personal data, and limited freedom to individualize treatment. Publication of results serves to counterbalance these inevitable ethical costs by offering useful information to benefit future generations of patients. While the commercial interests of sponsors are understandable and inevitable, investigators and physicians should avoid any bias in planning a clinical trial, in its conduct, and in final analysis and publication.
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Notes
- 1.
Development of a second cancer five or more years after successful treatment of the first cancer is a significant problem in oncology and is especially worrying in pediatric oncology.
- 2.
The data about the used drugs are not disclosed in order to prevent identification of the study and its sponsor.
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Zwitter, M. (2019). Research. In: Medical Ethics in Clinical Practice. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00719-5_19
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