Heidinger B, Webber C, Chambaere K, Close E, Deliens L, Onwuteaka-Philipsen B, Pope T, van der Heide A, White B, Downar J. International Comparison of Underlying Disease Among Recipients of Medical Assistance in Dying. JAMA Intern Med. 2024 Dec 9. doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2024.6643.
Introduction
In 2023, 282 million individuals lived in jurisdictions allowing medical assistance in dying (MAID). Eligibility criteria (eg, prognosis) and type of MAID (self-administered MAID or physician-assisted suicide [PAS] vs clinician-administered MAID or euthanasia) vary by jurisdiction, with MAID use ranging from 0.1% to 5.1% of all deaths.1 But regardless of jurisdiction, cancer and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) consistently account for up to 80% of MAID cases1,2 despite accounting for fewer than 30% of all deaths.3 To better understand the relative effect of disease and jurisdiction on the use of MAID, we conducted an international comparison of the rates of MAID deaths across diseases.
