Medical and ethical issues in xenotransplantation: the opinion of the public, patients, and transplant candidates in Italy

Frati, Giacomo; Frati, Paola; Muzzi, Luigi; Oricchio, G; Papalia, Ugo; Yacoub, M.H.

doi:10.1016/s0041-1345(00)02786-x

Cited by 10 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Our finding that male gender was associated with a greater awareness and acceptance of xenotransplantation is consistent with all surveys on the general public, patients, and university students, which have shown that females are less inclined to accept a xenograft [18,22,27,39,44,45]. Moreover, male students seem more positive about the use of animals in biomedical research and less concerned about the pain and suffering of laboratory animals [46].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

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Understanding of and attitudes to xenotransplantation: a survey among Italian university students

Bona¹,

Canova²,

Rumiati³

et al. 2004

Xenotransplantation

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chi-squared, Pearson's test; P-values <0.05 were considered significant. A total of 585 of 602 (97.2%) students completed the questionnaire (132 males, 453 females, mean age 20.4, range 19 to 43 yr). They were on courses in Medicine (33.85%), Agriculture (5.98%), Veterinary Medicine (11.45%), Psychology (18.46%) and Educational Sciences (30.26%). As for their previous schooling, they came from classical or scientific high school (58.3%), technical college (14.7%), language college (6.3%), teacher training college (11.9%) or others (8.8%). Concerning their religious beliefs, 83% were Catholics, and 56.2% defined themselves as practising Catholics. Eighty-eight percentage of the students knew of the possibility of animal organs being transplanted into humans and 77.9% of them approved of this idea. When grouped according to gender and education, a higher proportion of students approving of xenotransplantation were male (P = 0.017) and had attended classical or scientific high school (P = 0.011). Disapproval for moral, ethical or religious reasons was higher among practising than among non-practising Catholics; the latter rejected xenotransplantation more for immunological and infectious reasons (P = 0.014). As for the type of university course, a higher proportion of students approving of xenotransplantation attended science courses (Veterinary Medicine, Agriculture and Medicine vs. Educational Sciences and Psychology) (P = 0.013). University students generally approved of xenotransplantation. Male gender and a high-school education were associated with a greater acceptance of xenotransplantation. Practising vs. non-practising Catholics reported significantly different reasons for any disapproval of xenotransplantation. The choice of a science rather than an arts faculty at university was more strongly associated with a positive opinion on xenotransplantation.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

“…Pre‐clinical xenotransplantation research is underway in Italy [26], but no surveys have been performed to explore the Italian people's attitude to xenotransplantation. Recently, the clinical use of xenografts or tissues was reported to be not favored by a small number of Italian public, patients and transplant candidates [27].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding of and attitudes to xenotransplantation: a survey among Italian university students

Bona¹,

Canova²,

Rumiati³

et al. 2004

Xenotransplantation

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“…Gender only appeared to influence the choice of animal welfare implications as the most important argument against xenotransplantation, with women being more likely to choose this option than men. Previous studies, however, have found gender to be a larger determinant, revealing that males were more likely to be aware and approve of xenotransplantation [10,11,16]. Interestingly, animal welfare and the genetic modification of animals have proved to be more of a concern for students than may have been expected.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

The ethics of xenotransplantation: a survey of student attitudes

Pearce

Thomas

Clements

2006

Xenotransplantation

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Xenotransplantation is a burgeoning technology that could provide a solution to the shortage of organs and tissue for transplantation. It does, however, raise many moral and ethical dilemmas. The aim of this study was to evaluate undergraduate university students' knowledge and opinions on the controversial practice. Choice of science or arts subjects and gender were also assessed to establish if they were influencing factors. A total of 100 students, 50 science students and 50 arts students, answered a questionnaire. Seventy-seven percent of the students had heard of xenotransplantation, 66% believed it would be beneficial to society and only 45% believed it to be ethically and morally acceptable. The medical need for organs was highlighted as the most important argument in favour, and the risk of infection was revealed to be the most important argument against xenotransplantation. The students would significantly prefer a human to non-human animal organ, and did not believe the genetic modification of animals for transplantation was ethically acceptable. This study, in general, did not find that knowledge and acceptance of xenotransplantation was associated with subject background (i.e., science or arts courses) or gender.

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“…Despite being still at the experimental level, xenotransplantation may become an effective strategy to overcome the scarcity of human organs and may help, at some stage, saving more patients who are in need of transplantation [2,3]. However, it has previously been reported that whilst some patients would undergo xenotransplantation without any complaint, others would reject this type of biomedical technology [18]. The present study aimed to find a new strategy to allow patients to overcome possible negative affective reactions they may experience toward xenotransplantation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%