Are They Really Incidental After All?

摘要

A contentious issue within the research world is whether "incidental findings" should be disclosed to participants in biomedical research projects. The term generally refers to findings that were not the focus of the study. Incidental findings in research range from detecting a brain tumor in magnetic resonance imaging studies in healthy participants to discovering a putative mutation in BRCA1 in a micro-array study. These particular incidental findings have important health implications for the participant.