A Questionnaire to Cancer Patients Who were Informed of Their Disease and Underwent Surgical Operations

We think that “Informed Col sent” from cancer patients is necessary to achieve good treatment and care. We tell the truth to our patients regardless of the origin of cancer, staging, age and sex. From June 1992 to March 1995, we informed 543 cancer surgery patients of the truth of their disease. We handed out questionnaires to 366 of these p itients, and obtained information from 300 of them. Most of the 177 patients who did not reply had di, xi during the course of the study. Eighty-nine percent of the 300 patients who answered the questionnaire said it was best to be informed of the truth, whereas 1% answered they wantedto be told they did not have cancer even if it was a lie. Knowing the truth, 55% of the patients were shocked, but 87% recovered from their shock within 3 months. We respect the right not to know the truth and are only telling the truth to cancer patients after checkingwhether they wish to know the truth when they first come to our outpatient clinic. We concluded that it is appropriateand possible to tell the truth to cancer patients in Japan.