A New Wonder Drug? Just Wait

[Guest guest]

snip

Consumers have also had to put up with scientific flip-flops on

everything from the value of vitamin E and dietary fiber, to the safety

of aluminum cookware. So, it's no wonder many now feel mistrustful and

confused when it comes to medical research.

A lot of that mistrust is justified, experts say.

" There's a lot of hyping of [study] results -- some of it comes from

industry, where they often present results using relative terms,

magnifying the benefit and minimizing the harm, " said Dr.

Schwartz, co-director of the VA Outcomes Group and an associate

professor of medicine at Dartmouth Medical School. " So, there are all

these other interests that are promoting drugs to be portrayed in a

very favorable light. "

One big problem: Many highly hyped trial results are presented at

medical meetings. In that setting, researchers often offer up

incomplete, " interim " data sets. Findings presented at meetings are

also spared the scrutiny of peer review -- a prerequisite to

publication in medical journals.

Nevertheless, eager researchers and an enthusiastic media can quickly

get doctors and patients excited over results presented at meetings --

prompting them to try out a new " wonder drug " before all the

information is in.

In fact, a recent study in the Journal of the

National Cancer Institute found that use of the breast cancer drug Taxol

soared five-fold after interim data on its efficacy was presented at a

1998 meeting.

Luckily for patients, Taxol lived up to its early promise in fighting

tough-to-treat tumors. But that's not always the case, experts say.

" Our message is for the physicians in the community to be aware of the

potential risks of adopting therapies too early, " said the author of

the JNCI study, Dr. Sharon Giordano, a professor of medicine in the

department of breast medical oncology at the University of Texas M.D.

Cancer Center, in Houston.

snip

Shamoo stressed that clinical trials -- which usually include study

populations of only a few thousand -- will never be able to capture all

the risks that can pop up when millions of people take a marketed drug.

On the other hand, he said, better trial oversight -- including random,

independent " data audits " to keep researchers on the

straight-and-narrow -- might not hurt.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20060820/hl_hsn/anewwonderdrugjustwait

Kathy Meade