Quality of life and neoplastic diseases. Ethical issues

The article analyses the concept of the quality of life comparing two different ethical approaches, that is "catholic" personalist bioethics and "lay" bioethics. As regards the oncological field, personalist bioethics defends the respect for life as an absolute value (sanctity of life), while "lay" bioethics focuses attention on the patient's autonomy. The authors think that in oncological therapies the subjective evaluation of the patient must be taken into consideration as the expression of his/her personal concept of the quality of life, always with priority of the respect of life.