Ethical and juridical issues of genetic testing: a review of the international regulation.

The obtaining and use of genetic data have several particular implications for the rights of the patients and their relatives, and frequently practitioners and researchers face some new conflicts to which law and ethics try to give an answer. Some countries have enacted national laws related to genetic analysis. At the international level a great effort has been done to develop a common regulatory framework taking into account the rights of the patients/subjects of the research and other rights and interests. In the field of genetic analysis, both diagnostic and research purposes frequently go hand in hand. The scientific interest in the use of biological samples as a research tool has increased simultaneously with the knowledge of human genetics. The regulations related to the rights of the patients in the use of biological samples need to be abided.