Case reports on dangerous infectious diseases: a review of patient consent

Area of Science:

• Medical Ethics
• Infectious Diseases
• Public Health Security

Background:

• Case reports are crucial for documenting emerging infectious diseases, posing significant global health security threats.
• Adherence to ethical guidelines, particularly patient consent, is vital for publishing such sensitive medical information.
• The increasing emergence of dangerous infectious diseases necessitates evaluating ethical practices in case report publication.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess whether case reports concerning dangerous infectious diseases adhere to patient consent guidelines.
• To determine the prevalence of documented patient consent in case reports of Tier 1 infectious agents.

Main Methods:

• A systematic search of PubMed for full-text case reports on human infections published between January 1, 2014, and December 31, 2016.
• Inclusion criteria focused on infectious diseases classified as Tier 1 agents by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
• Case reports were evaluated for documented evidence of patient consent according to CARE guidelines.

Main Results:

• A total of 71 case reports on Ebola, Botulism, Yersinia, and Tularaemia were analyzed.
• Only 17 reports (24%) explicitly stated that patient consent to publish had been obtained.
• The majority of case reports on high-risk pathogens lacked documented patient consent.

Conclusions:

• A significant minority of published case reports involving dangerous infectious diseases include documented patient consent.
• There is a need to improve adherence to ethical standards for patient consent in case report publications of high-consequence pathogens.
• Strengthening ethical reporting practices is essential for maintaining public trust and scientific integrity in infectious disease research.