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Is It Reasonable to Deny Older Patients Treatment for Glioblastoma?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Michael K. Gusmano
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Extract

Is it ever fair to limit treatment for diseases like glioblastoma for which prognosis is poor? Because resources are finite and health care spending limits the other possible uses for those resources, limiting access to an intervention that does not generate benefits is ethically sound. Ignoring the balance of benefits and burdens associated with treatment ignores opportunity costs and leads us to treat some lives as more valuable than others. It also ignores evidence that patients and families, when presented with adequate information about the benefits and burdens of aggressive treatment compared with palliative care, often prefer the palliative care option.

Should the limitations we set on the availability of care be greater for older people than younger people? Since the 1980s, scholars have called for strong age rationing of medical care in which Medicare would not pay for anything other than palliative care after they have achieved average life expectancy (usually 75 or 80 years of age).

Type
Symposium
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , Summer 2014 , pp. 183 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2014

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