Purpose/Context.

This article seeks to determine the most covered, studied, and discussed bioethical principles in the medical, clinical, secular, cardinal, principlist, personalist, realist, European, and Latin American currents and identify the main trends between 1970 and 2018.

Methodology/Approach.

We built a matrix as a recording and categorization instrument for a qualitative study with a descriptive and documentary approach and a deductive method. Thus, we selected and outlined the bioethical currents of the principles addressed with a descriptive follow-up of their status to find knowledge gaps and create optimal conditions for inter- and transdisciplinary debates.

Results/Findings.

The conjunction of findings allowed identifying fourteen bioethical principles in the predominant currents and tendencies, recognizing their origin and definition, and establishing relationships between authors of different nationalities and bioethical currents.

Discussions/Conclusions/Contributions.

We detected fourteen prevailing bioethical principles in forty-eight years: autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, information, dignity, integrity, vulnerability, respect for life, individuality, universality, conservation, realization, property. Each principle was associated with an international instrument and a bioethical current, noting pluriprinciplism and orientation towards European and American bioethicists' trends.

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