Historical view of withholding and withdrawing life-support therapies in ICU

Abstract

Ethical concerns surrounding the need to withholding or withdrawing life-support therapies in some patients raised very soon within the ICU field and took more and more importance paralleling the technical advances. Despite the initial law void, intensivists learnt to formalize ethical procedure, understand and assume their intentionality allowing argumentation and collegiality in their decisions. The french Leonetti and Claeys Leonetti laws brought the legal assessment of the "let die". ICU teams also learnt to assume the choice of palliative care for the end-of-life support.