Informed Consent, Cancer, and Truth in Prognosis

To the Editor: Annas provides a thoughtful analysis of the Arato case (Jan. 20 issue), 1 in which physicians were sued for not informing a patient with pancreatic cancer of his prognosis. Since most Japanese doctors still withhold the truth from terminally ill patients, I became interested in how American physicians can be honest with patients. My interviews with American physicians surprised me, because I learned that they are not entirely candid with dying patients 2 . At least half those I interviewed said they deliver bad news to patients with the worst part (the prognosis) often left out and with an . . .