The Ethics Blog

A blog from the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics (CRB)

Tag: clinical trials

YouTube as a source of information on paediatric cancer trials

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5 October, 2021 / / 1 Comment

YouTube has become an easily accessible source of information on a variety of issues, from how to fix a puncture to what Plato meant by love, and much more. Of course, YouTube can also serve as a source of health information. Regarding certain issues of health, it may be of importance to review whether the information in the uploaded videos is reliable.

A sensitive research ethical issue is what it means for children to participate in clinical cancer trials. Parents of children with cancer can be asked to give informed consent, agreeing to let their child to participate in such a study. Since the information from the researchers is difficult to understand, as is the whole situation of the family, it is conceivable that many choose to obtain information from the Internet and social media such as YouTube. If so, what kind of information do they get? Is the information ethically satisfactory?

Tove Godskesen, Sara Frygner Holm, Anna T. Höglund and Stefan Eriksson recently conducted a review of YouTube as a source of information on clinical trials for paediatric cancer. The survey was limited to videos in English posted 2010 or later, not more than 20 minutes long and with more than 100 views. Most of the videos had been produced by centres, hospitals or foundations that conduct paediatric cancer studies. The videos were graded using an instrument (DISCERN), the questions of which were adapted to the purpose of measuring the research ethical reliability of the videos. The authors found that 20 percent of the videos were useful without serious shortcomings; almost 50 percent of the videos were misleading with serious shortcomings; 30 percent were classified as inappropriate sources of information. No video could be classified as excellent.

The quality of the videos was thus generally low from a research ethical point of view. A particularly serious problem had to do with the fact that half of the videos focused on new experimental treatments or innovative early clinical trials with children whose cancer had recurred or where the standard treatment had failed. In such Phase 1 clinical trials, one mainly investigates what doses of the drug can be given without too many or too severe adverse effects. Such studies cannot be expected to have any positive therapeutic effect for these children. Instead of emphasizing this ethical difficulty in Phase 1 trials, a hopeful affective language was used in the videos suggesting new therapeutic possibilities for the children.

The authors draw the practical conclusion that children with cancer and their parents may need advice on the quality of the often anecdotal healthcare information that can be found in videos online. Because video is simultaneously an excellent medium for information to both parents and children, the authors suggest that healthcare providers produce and upload high-quality information on clinical paediatric cancer studies.

Read the article in the journal Information, Communication & Society: YouTube as a source of information on paediatric cancer trials.

Pär Segerdahl

Written by…

Pär Segerdahl, Associate Professor at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics and editor of the Ethics Blog.

Tove Godskesen, Sara Frygner Holm, Anna T. Höglund & Stefan Eriksson (2021) YouTube as a source of information on clinical trials for paediatric cancer, Information, Communication & Society, DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2021.1974515

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When established treatments do not help

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27 April, 2021 / / 0 Comments

What should the healthcare team do when established treatments do not help the patient? Should one be allowed to test a so-called non-validated treatment on the patient, where efficacy and side effects have not yet been determined scientifically?

Gert Helgesson comments on this problem in Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics. His comment concerns suggestions from authors who in the same journal propose a specific restrictive policy. They argue that if you want to test a non-validated treatment, you should from the beginning plan this as a research project where the treatment is tested on several subjects. Only in this way do you get data that can form the basis for scientific conclusions about the treatment. Above all, the test will undergo ethical review, where the risks to the patient and the reasons for trying the treatment are carefully assessed.

Of course, it is important to be restrictive. At the same time, there are disadvantages with the specific proposal above. If the patient has a rare disease, for example, it can be difficult to gather enough patients to draw scientific conclusions from. Here it may be more reasonable to allow case reports and open storage of data, rather than requiring ethically approved clinical trials. Another problem is that clinical trials take place under conditions that differ from those of patient care. If the purpose is to treat an individual patient because established treatments do not work, then it becomes strange if the patient is included in a randomized study where the patient may end up in the control group which receives the standard treatment. A third problem is when the need for treatment is urgent and there is no time to approach an ethical review board and await their response. Moreover, is it reasonable that research ethical review boards make treatment decisions about individual patients?

Gert Helgesson is well aware of the complexity of the problem and the importance of being careful. Patients must not be used as if they were guinea pigs for clinicians who want to make quick, prestigious discoveries without undergoing proper research ethical review. At the same time, one can do a lot of good for patients by identifying new effective treatments when established treatments do not work. But who should make the decision to test a non-validated treatment if it is unreasonable to leave the decision to a research ethical board?

Gert Helgesson suggests that such decisions on non-validated treatments can reasonably be made by the head of the clinic, and that a procedure for such decisions at the clinic level should exist. For example, an advisory hospital board can be appointed, which supports discussions and decisions at the clinic level about new treatments. The fact that a treatment is non-validated does not mean that there are no empirical and theoretical reasons to believe that it might work. Making a careful assessment of these reasons is an important task in these discussions and decisions.

I hope I have done justice to Gert Helgesson’s balanced discussion of a complex question: What is a reasonable framework for new non-validated treatments? In some last-resort cases where the need for care is urgent, for example, or the disease is rare, decisions about non-validated treatments should be clinical rather than research ethical, concludes Gert Helgesson. The patient must, of course, consent and a careful assessment must be made of the available knowledge about the treatment.

Pär Segerdahl

Written by…

Pär Segerdahl, Associate Professor at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics and editor of the Ethics Blog.

Helgesson, G. What is a reasonable framework for new non-validated treatments?. Theor Med Bioeth 41, 239–245 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-020-09537-6

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We do not know if cancer patients receive better treatment by participating in clinical trials

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12 May, 2020 / / 1 Comment

How do we know? That is the recurring question in a scientific culture. Do we have support for what we claim or is it just an opinion? Is there evidence?

The development of new cancer treatments provides many examples of the recurring question. The pharmaceutical company would like to be able to claim that the new treatment is more effective than existing alternatives and that the dosages recommended give good effect without excessive side effects. However, first we must answer the question, How do we know?

It is not enough to ask the question just once. We must repeat the question for every aspect of the treatment. Any claim on efficacy, side effects and dosages must be supported by answers to the question. How do we arrive at these answers? How do we check that it is not mere opinions? Through clinical trials conducted with cancer patients who agree to be research subjects.

A new research ethical study shows, however, that an ethically sensitive claim is often repeated in cancer research, without first asking and answering the question “How do we know?” in a satisfying way. Which claim? It is the claim that cancer patients are better off as participants in clinical trials than as regular patients who receive standard treatment. The claim is ethically sensitive because it can motivate patients to participate in trials.

In a large interview study, the authors first investigated whether the claim occurs among physicians and nurses working with clinical trials. Then, through a systematic literature review, they examined whether there is scientific evidence supporting the claim. The startling answer to the questions is: Yes, the claim is common. No, the claim lacks support.

Patients recruited for clinical trials are thus at risk of being misled by the common but unfounded opinion that research participation means better treatment. Of course, it is conceivable that patients who participate in trials will at least get indirect positive effects through increased attention: better follow-ups, more sample taking, closer contacts with physicians and nurses. However, indirect positive effects on outcomes should have been visible in the literature study. Regarding subjective effects, it is pointed out in the article that such effects will vary with the patients’ conditions and preferences. It is not always positive for a very sick patient to provide the many samples that research needs. In general, then, we cannot claim that research participation has indirect positive effects.

This is how the authors, including Tove Godskesen and Stefan Eriksson at CRB, reason in the clearly written article in BMC Cancer: Are cancer patients better off if they participate in clinical trials? A mixed methods study. Tove Godskesen was the leader of the study.

An ethically important conclusion drawn in the article is the following. If we suggest to patients who consent to participation in trials that research means better treatment, then they receive misleading information. Instead, altruistic research participation should be emphasized. By participating in studies, patients support new knowledge that can enable better cancer treatments for future patients.

The article examines a case where the question “How do we know?” has the answer, “We do not know, it is just an opinion.” Then at least we know that we do not know! How do we know? Through the studies presented in the article – read it!

Pär Segerdahl

Written by…

Pär Segerdahl, Associate Professor at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics and editor of the Ethics Blog.

Zandra Engelbak Nielsen, Stefan Eriksson, Laurine Bente Schram Harsløf, Suzanne Petri, Gert Helgesson, Margrete Mangset and Tove E. Godskesen. Are cancer patients better off if they participate in clinical trials? A mixed methods study. BMC Cancer 20, 401 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-020-06916-z

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Clinical cancer trials convey a culture of hope

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14 January, 2020 / / 2 Comments

Activities that we may want to keep apart often overlap. An example is cancer research and care. Clinical cancer centers often conduct research and recruit patients as research participants. Such research is important if we want to offer future patients better cancer treatments. However, does this also apply to patients participating in studies? Are they offered better care as research participants?

Together with five co-authors, Tove Godskesen recently published an interview study with clinical physicians carrying out clinical cancer trials in Sweden, Denmark and Finland. The questions were about what ethical challenges the physicians perceived in the care of patients who participate in clinical trials. Does the overlap of care and research create ethical challenges? Although several physicians mentioned challenges, there were tendencies to downplay ethical difficulties and to associate the overlap between research and care with care benefit.

Tove Godskesen sees indications of a culture of hope in clinical cancer trials, where patients and physicians reinforce the image of research participation as an opportunity to access the latest therapy. However, uncertain patients can challenge the picture by asking the physician to affirm that the experimental treatment is as good as the standard treatment. You do not know that. That is why you are doing research!

The authors do not make any claims about whether a culture of hope in clinical cancer trials is good or not. However, they believe that the culture needs to become visible and discussed openly. So that the ethical challenges when care and research overlap do not disappear from sight.

The culture of hope has several aspects that you can read more about in the article. For example, the attitude that it is better to avoid giving patients bad news.

Pär Segerdahl

Written by…

Pär Segerdahl, Associate Professor at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics and editor of the Ethics Blog.

Tove E Godskesen, Suzanne Petri, Stefan Eriksson, Arja Halkoaho, Margrete Mangset and Zandra E Nielsen. The culture of hope and ethical challenges in clinical trials: A qualitative study of oncologists and haematologists’ views. Clinical Ethics. First Published December 30, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/1477750919897379

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Patients find misleading information on the internet

30 October, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Pär SegerdahlIn phase 1 clinical studies of substances that might possibly be used to treat cancer in the future, cancer patients are recruited as research participants. These patients almost always have advanced cancer that no longer responds to the standard treatment.

That research participation would affect the cancer is unlikely. The purpose of a phase 1 study is to determine safe dosage range and to investigate side effects and other safety issues. This will then enable proceeding to investigating the effectiveness of the substance on specific forms of cancer, but with other research participants.

Given that patients often seek online information on clinical trials, Tove Godskesen, Josepine Fernow and Stefan Eriksson wanted to investigate the quality of the information that currently is available on the internet about phase 1 clinical cancer trials in Sweden, Denmark and Norway.

The results they report in the European Journal of Cancer Care are quite alarming. The most serious problem, as I understand it, is that the information conceals risks of serious side effects, and in various ways suggests possible positive treatment outcomes. This lack of accurate language is serious. We are dealing with severely ill patients who easily entertain unrealistic hopes for new treatment options.

To give a picture of the problem, I would like to give a few examples of typical phrases that Godskesen, Fernow and Eriksson found in the information on the internet, as well as their suggestions for more adequate wordings. Noticing the contrast between the linguistic usages is instructive.

One problem is that the information speaks of treatment, even though it is about research participation. Instead of writing “If you are interested in the treatment,” you could write “If you want to participate in the research.” Rather than writing “Patients will be treated with X,” you could write “Participants will be given X.”

The substance being tested is sometimes described as a medicine or therapy. Instead, you can write “You will get a substance called X.”

Another problem is that research participation is described as an advantage and opportunity for the cancer patient. Instead of writing “An advantage of study participation is that…,” one could write “The study might lead to better cancer treatments for future patients.” Rather than writing “This treatment could be an opportunity for you,” which is extremely misleading in phase 1 clinical cancer trials, one could more accurately say, “You can participate in this study.”

The authors also tested the readability of the texts they found on the internet. The Danish website skaccd.org had the best readability scores, followed by the Norwegian site helsenorge.no. The Swedish website cancercenter.se got the worst readability scores. The information was very brief and deemed to require a PhD to be understandable.

It is, of course, intelligible that it is hard to speak intelligibly about such difficult things as cancer trials. Not only do the patients recruited as study participants hope for effective treatment. The whole point of the research is effective cancer treatment. This is the ultimate perspective of the research; the horizon towards which the gaze is turned.

The fact, however, is that this horizon is far removed, far away in the future, and is about other cancer patients than those who participate in phase 1 trials. Therefore, it is important not to let this perspective characterize information to patients in whom hope would be unrealistic.

Do not talk about treatments and opportunities. Just say “You can participate in this study.”

Pär Segerdahl

Godskesen, TE, Fernow J, Eriksson S. Quality of online information about phase I clinical cancer trials in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Eur J Cancer Care. 2018;e12937. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecc.12937

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Nurses’ vulnerable position when care and research coincide

10 September, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Pär SegerdahlA new article highlights ethical challenges that nurses face in their profession when more and more clinical trials are conducted on cancer patients.

Nursing alone is stressful. Studies have shown how heavy workload and being pressed for time can cause moral blindness and emotional immunization among nurses. In clinical trials, the situation is even more complicated, due to dual professional roles. The nurses have to accommodate both the values of care and the values of research. Caring for cancer patients coincides with recruiting patients as research participants and coordinating clinical trials on them according to detailed research protocols.

The article by Tove Godskesen et al. describes challenges faced by nurses burdened with this dual professional identity. The most difficult challenges concern cancer patients near the end of life, who no longer respond to the standard therapy. They often hope desperately that research participation will give them access to the next generation of cancer drugs, which may work more efficiently on them. This unrealistic hope creates difficulties for the nurses. They must recruit cancer patients to clinical trials, while the patients often are so terminally ill that they, from a perspective of caring, perhaps rather should be allowed to end their lives in peace and quiet.

An additional complication, next to the heavy workload in nursing and the dual identity as a nurse in the service of research, is that the number of clinical trials increases. There is a political ambition to accelerate the development, to support the Nordic pharmaceutical industry. This means that more and more nurses are engaged to coordinate trials: a task for which they rarely were trained, for which they hardly have time to prepare, and over which they lack power, given their position in the hierarchy of healthcare.

In view of the political ambition to increase the number of clinical trials, there should be a corresponding ambition to support the increasing number of nurses who will have to assume dual professional roles. Godskesen’s study indicates that there is a lack of systematic strategies to handle the situation. Nurses who coordinate trials on patients support each other, to the best of their abilities, over a quick cup of coffee.

Godskesen recommends more strategic training and better support for nurses working with clinical trials. For the nurses’ sake, and not least for the sake of patient safety.

Pär Segerdahl

Tove E. Godskesen, Suzanne Petri, Stefan Eriksson, Arja Halkoaho, Margrete Mangset, Merja Pirinen, Zandra Engelbak Nielsen. 2018. When Nursing Care and Clinical Trials Coincide: A Qualitative Study of the Views of Nordic Oncology and Hematology Nurses on Ethical Work Challenges. Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics. doi.org/10.1177/1556264618783555

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