Limites de la technique : enjeux éthiques

[Ethical stakes of information in radiation oncology: Thinking the risk and building the therapeutic alliance]

Informing patients before receiving radiation therapy is a fundamental ethical imperative. As a condition of the possibility of autonomy, information allows people to make health decisions concerning themselves, which is required by French law. This information includes in particular the potential risks due to radiation therapy. It is therefore necessary to think about what risk is, and how to define and assess it, in order to finally communicate it. The practice of informing people involves many ethical issues relating to the very content of the information, the form in which it is transmitted or even the intention that leads the health professional to say (or not to say) the risk. The transmission of information also questions the way to build a relationship of trust with the patients and how to integrate their own representations about these treatments. Between the risks of paternalism or even defensive medicine, this practice is at the heart of our professional practice.

Compréhension/acceptation de la radiothérapie : un dilemme éthique résolu par une éthique de la considération et de la sollicitude

PURPOSE

Ethical questions are poorly investigated specifically in radiation oncology. The objective of the study was to identify and understand the main ethical issue in radiation oncology.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A quantitative analysis was based on the answers to a questionnaire of 200 professionals from 22 radiation oncology departments. The questionnaire mainly aimed to characterize the main ethical issue. A monocentric qualitative analysis was based on semi-structured interviews focused on the main identified ethical issue, carried out with eight technologists, and 20 patients undergoing radiotherapy.

RESULTS

The main ethical issue was the understanding and/or acceptance of the treatment by the patients (71 %), which frequently arises (more than once a month) (52 %), and corresponds to an ethical tension between the principles of respect for autonomy and beneficence (the good as viewed by the patient) as defined by Beauchamp and Childress. The technologists, wish the patient to be fully involved in his treatment, with the even possibility of refusing it. However, excluding paternalism and autonomic relentlessness, the technologists have the feeling of acting for the good of the patients by treating them with radiation, even if the patients are not always aware of it, because they are within a situation of vulnerability. If the hierarchy of principles is a compromise alternative, this problem is finally well resolved by the effective implementation of an ethic of consideration and solicitude, restoring the patient capabilities, i.e. the maximum development of his potentialities in his situation of vulnerability. Beyond the legal dimension, patient information is crucial and must consider the specific temporality of the patient.

CONCLUSION

The main ethical issue in radiation oncology is the understanding and/or acceptance of the treatment involving the development of an ethic of consideration and solicitude.

[Ethical stakes in palliative care in radiation oncology]

In 2021, the Ethics Commission of the SFRO has chosen the issue of the practice of palliative care in radiotherapy oncology. Radiation oncology plays a central role in the care of patients with cancer in palliative phase. But behind the broad name of palliative radiotherapy, we actually find a large variety of situations involving diverse ethical issues. Radiation oncologists have the delicate task to take into account multiple factors throughout a complex decision-making process. While the question of the therapeutic indication and the technical choice allowing it to be implemented remains central, reflection cannot be limited to these decision-making and technical aspects alone. It is also a question of being able to create the conditions for a singularity focused care and to build an authentic care relationship, beyond technicity. It is through this daily ethical work, in close collaboration with patients, and under essential conditions of multidisciplinarity and multiprofessionalism, that our fundamental role as caregiver can be deployed.

[Health democracy: Patient partnership]

In 2019, the scientific committee of the French society of radiation oncology (SFRO) created an ethics committee. Its mission is to provide our professional community with food for thought on ethical issues, and to identify its specificities within the radiation oncology departments. For the 2020 annual conference, the commission looked into the evolution of the patient-carer relationship, and more particularly to the strong idea of patient partnership. Indeed, the writing of the White Book of Cancer gave voice to sick people and stressed the need for new devices, such as the Caregiving Time. Patients can no longer be considered as objects of care but as people whose dignity and autonomy must be imperatively respected. The acquisition of knowledge allows a bilateral exchange, prerequisite of a dynamic collaboration. Patients can be partners in their own care, partners in training and research (expert patient), but also partners in health institutions and policies. It is this notion of partnership and involvement of the person in their path of care in radiation oncology that we will analyse here. It will be about defining it, by developing the concept of autonomy, and bringing out its complexity and ambivalence through two examples from our clinical practice: the shared decision-making process for patients with localized prostate cancer and the patient's involvement in the success of his radiotherapy.