• The right of the patient to information about his or her health is not stipulated as a specific right. The Code of Medical Ethics deals with the obligation of granting information in the context of the right to informed consent.
• The physician should provide the patient the most suitable information about the diagnosis, the prognosis, and the eventual diagnostic and therapeutic alternatives and about the foreseen consequences of the realized choices. He should take into account the knowledge of the patient, in order for the patient to understand the proposed diagnostic-therapeutic alternatives. Every ulterior request for information from the patient should be satisfied. The physician should also satisfy the requests of citizens regarding prevention.
• The therapeutic exception is not recognized in its purest form. The Code of Medical Ethics however stipulates that information regarding grave prognosis which may concern the person and which may cause him to suffer, must be delivered with caution, using terminology which can not traumatize the patient or which doesn’t exclude any element of hope.
• The will of the patient not to be informed must be respected.
• The information can be provided to a third party, provided that the patient explicitly consents to it. In the event of grave danger to the health or life of any third person, information can be given without the patients’ consent upon the Guarantor’s (Italian Data Protection Commissioner) authorization. The will of the patient to assign the information to another person must be respected.

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