Possible Outcomes and Plan for Resolving the Issue
Modern medicine knows a number of approaches to the treatment of leukemia and its various subtypes that define needed therapy strategies. Traditionally, treatments for leukemia are chemotherapy, biological therapy, radiation therapy, targeted therapy, and stem cell transplant. In recent years, the medical community has pondered the radically new approach to cancer treatment, which is isolating and collecting T-cells from the patient. Later, the T-cells are reprogrammed and reintroduced with the addition of a modified, disabled HIV (“How disabled HIV cells,” n.d.). It is expected that the newly created genetic code will enable the protein to kill cancer cells.
To predict possible outcomes for both cases – traditional and radical HIV treatment, it is essential to compare and contrast the methods based on several criteria. First, researchers need to define the survivability rate for different kinds of leukemia. So far, there is enough data to make a precise prognosis when a patient is treated traditionally: the survivability rate ranges from 50 to 90% (“Survival rates,” 2019). One study showed that HIV treatment might account for an 81% chance to go into remission (Hucks & Rheingold, 2019). However, it is difficult to say whether the findings are truly inferential and can be applied to broader populations. Second, the possible health outcomes include side effects that are unavoidable in each case. Radiation and chemotherapy can cause heart problems, hypertension, and lung diseases in the long perspectives. As for the HIV treatment, the list includes neurological complications, damage to non-cancerous tissues, and anaphylactic shock. In summation, to resolve this dilemma, researchers need to conduct more clinical studies and gather objective data on HIV treatment to be compared to the traditional treatment.
Reflection on Ethical Values
When considering a new treatment, especially as radical as using HIV to fight leukemia, researchers need to heed ethical values and limitations. According to the Code of Ethics for nurses, each patient has the right to autonomy and self-determination (American Nurses Association, 2015). In this case, this implies that before enrolling in HIV therapy, the person needs to give explicit consent (Farroni, Thompson, Arif, Corted & Gallagher, 2017). He or she has to have enough information about the nature of the procedure, likely health prospects, and possible side effects. At this point, there are not enough studies to qualify the HIV treatment of leukemia as an evidence-based practice. Thus, in the absence of objective, inferential data, both health workers and patients might be misguided.
The second ethical consideration that needs to be made concerns the ability of children who are the target population for the new treatment to give consent. Martinez, Permar, and Fouda (2016) argue that children have different immune responses to HIV as opposed to adults. When a child receives the virus, their health may deteriorate much faster than it would in the case of an older patient. Moreover, children may suffer from long-term adverse health affects their entire life. Young children cannot handle such health information and make reasonable conclusions, which compromises the ethics of the treatment.
References
American Nurses Association. (2015). Code of ethics for nurses with interpretive statements.Web.
Farroni, J. S., Thompson, P. A., Arif, D., Corted, J. E., & Gallagher, C. M. (2017). Ethical issues in patients with leukemia: Practice points and educational topics for the clinical oncologist and trainees. Journal of Clinical Research in Bioethics, 8(314), 2.
How disabled HIV cells are used to create cancer treatment. (n.d.). HIV Equal Online, Web.
Hucks, G. & Rheingold, S.R. (2019). The journey to CAR T cell therapy: the pediatric and young adult experience with relapsed or refractory b-ball. Blood Cancer, 9 (2), 10.
Martinez, D. R., Permar, S. R., & Fouda, G. G. (2016). Contrasting adult and infant immune responses to HIV infection and vaccination. Clinical Vaccine Immunology, 23(2), 84-94.
Survival rates for childhood leukemia.(2019). Web.