What makes a medical intervention invasive?

Abstract

The classification of medical interventions as either invasive or non-invasive is commonly regarded to be morally important. On the most commonly endorsed account of invasiveness, a medical intervention is invasive if and only if it involves either breaking the skin (‘incision’) or inserting an object into the body (‘insertion’). Building on recent discussions of the concept of invasiveness, we show that this standard account fails to capture three aspects of existing usage of the concept of invasiveness in relation to medical interventions—namely, (1) usage implying that invasiveness comes in degrees, (2) that the invasiveness of an intervention can depend on the characteristics of the salient alternative interventions, and (3) that medical interventions can be invasive in non-physical ways. We then offer the beginnings of a revised account that, we argue, is able to capture a wider range of existing usage. Central to our account is a distinction between two properties:basic invasivenessandthreshold invasiveness. We end by assessing what the standard account gets right, and what more needs to be done to complete our schematic account.

Applying the IEEE BRAIN neuroethics framework to intra-cortical brain-computer interfaces

“…inserted into the brain endovascularly,[45]. Note that the term 'invasive' may be ambiguous or contentious, since a consensus on the exact definition of 'invasiveness' is lacking[46,47]. Therefore, care must be taken when using this term to avoid misinterpretations.…”