Ethical subjects in lung transplant and current era

Abstract

General principals of biomedical ethicsLung transplantation has become a viable treatment option for many patients with terminal pulmonary disease, but the lack of available donors adds more constrains to already difficult and lengthy process. Sadly, many patients listed for lung transplant die while awaiting transplantation (1).Due to the fact that organs recovered from deceased donors offer substantial (and sometimes superior) benefits to potential recipients, with no risk to a healthy live donor, the efforts to maximize the use of organs from deceased donors must not be impeded by the development of live organ donation (2).Understanding the fundamental principles of biomedical ethics will help analyzing the complex medical situation that physicians often encounter such as organ transplantation.There are four principles: Beneficence which means "do good", non-maleficence "do no harm", autonomy which means making sure that the patients fully understand their options and that their decisions are respected, and Justice which means trying to advocate and invest the medical resources equally to all patients regardless of any factor including social economic status (3). Applying general biomedical ethical concepts in lung transplantIn lung transplant, Beneficence means that this ethical principal is clearly being met in all transplant patients as a group. In other words, the quality of life of some patients is