Abstract

CABRE, Lluís  and  MASANES, Ferran. When should patients suffering from a terminal non-oncological disease enter the ICU?. Rev. Bioética y Derecho [online]. 2020, n.48, pp.5-21.  Epub May 11, 2020. ISSN 1886-5887.

Medicine in general and the intensive medicine (ICM) in particular, have presented major changes in recent years, especially in relation to decision-making on the actions to be taken in patients with chronic diseases. Thus, both oncological and non-oncological chronic diseases, in most cases, have a much longer evolutionary course, with decompensation episodes that may require the establishment of intensive medicine. That is why currently diseases with a single organ failure, such as liver cirrhosis or dilated cardiomyopathy, for example, can be considered terminal according to their degree of evolution. This requires health care teams to have not only scientific-technical knowledge but also bioethical knowledge in order to decide on the correct diagnostic-therapeutic approach in each specific case. In this work, we intend to give some basic notions to make clinical decisions in this group of patients.

Keywords : ICU terminal patient; entry criteria; life support limitation.

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