We simply don’t know why more news organizations can’t do an adequate job of explaining the limitations of observational studies – most notably, that they can’t prove cause and effect.
Yes, they can show strong associations. But they can’t prove cause and effect.
NBC Nightly News, as one example recently, inadequately explained the latest suggestion that coffee consumption can lower the risk of prostate cancer. In the anchor lead, Brian Williams framed this as another case of flip-flopping science, lightheartedly talking about what they say about “all those medical studies…if you don’t like the findings, wait for the next study.”
The story seemed puzzled at how the same “lab” 30 years ago reported that coffee was linked to a…

Original post by Better Health and software by Elliott Back

The rise of prophylactic double mastectomy in women with increased risk of breast cancer has been a topic of recent discussion. In particular, this trend has been observed amongst women with the diagnosis of unilateral carcinoma in situ, or pre-invasive breast cancer. While it has been known that in women with genetic cancer syndromes, including BRCA1 and BRCA2, double mastectomy reduces risk, the efficacy of the approach is uncertain in women with other risk profiles, yet more women and surgeons seem to be doing it.
Knowing when to test, treat and act is part of art of medical practice. The ability to convey this information effectively is also an art. Both patients and doctors may have a hard time embracing watchful waiting with respect to many forms of cancer and pre-cancer. In the case…

Original post by Better Health and software by Elliott Back

A study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that “that men in their seventies had prostate cancer screening nearly twice as often as men in their early fifties, who are more likely to benefit from prostate cancer detection and treatment.” An American Society for Clinical Oncology news release includes this quote:
“Our findings show a high rate of elderly and sometimes ill men being inappropriately screened for prostate cancer. We’re concerned these screenings may prompt cancer treatment among elderly men who ultimately have a very low likelihood of benefitting the patient and paradoxically can cause more harm than good,” said senior author Scott Eggener, MD, assistant professor of surgery at the University of Chicago. “We were also surprised to fin…

Original post by Better Health and software by Elliott Back

I bet there was a huge collective sigh of relief about the land among men with prostate cancer, their families, their physicians and especially the company involved when the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)-which runs the Medicare program-announced their decision this afternoon to cover the new cancer immunotherapy treatment for advanced prostate cancer, called Provenge®, under Medicare.
 
The stakes are huge: I suspect the market (and cost to Medicare) will run into potentially billions of dollars, yet the benefits for all of that money at first glance seem to be modest.
 
Ordinarily, the outcome in favor of approval would have been as close to certain as possible. 
 
After all, this new treatment for prostate cancer did increase the survival o…

Original post by Dr. Len’s Cancer Blog and software by Elliott Back

After months of anticipation, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has decided that the Provenge prostate cancer vaccine is eligible for reimbursement. The unsurprising decision comes just four months after a CMS advisory panel voted that Dendreonâ??s Provenge vaccine for advanced prostate cancer shows â??clinically significantâ? improvement in survival (look here)
The panel was convened, however, after the agency last year unexpectedly initiated a so-called National Coverage Determination in response to questions raised by Medicare contractors amid concerns over off-label use. Such a review was unusual, given that Medicare generally pays automatically for FDA-approved oncology meds (read here).
For that reason, the CMS review set off a firestorm of protest that the agency wa…

Original post by Pharmalot and software by Elliott Back

Maggie Mahar’s Health Beat blog tipped me off about a Bloomberg opinion piece by an Oregon urologist that begins by stating:
“The decision to opt for medical care that relies on the most costly technology is often based on blind faith that newer, elaborate and expensive must be better.”
Later, he focuses specifically on robotic surgery devices:
“They are costly and require significant re-training for surgeons. Yet consumers hungrily seek out surgeons versed in their use. If a surgeon recommends an older, less expensive technology, many patients will shop for a surgeon willing to use the newest and costliest devices, even if the added benefits are unproven and the risks may be greater.
Hospitals do nothing to discourage this and engage in the kind of tawdry marketing…

Original post by Better Health and software by Elliott Back

Oh, vitamin D, where have ye gone?  We miss ya!!
 
That might be the refrain of many who have labored so long to promote awareness of vitamin D as a possible cancer prevention agent for the past number of years. 
 
Not that the advocates have lost their faith-a recent article from Dr. Cedric Garland, who is an expert on vitamin D as a case in point-but a report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has thrown a bit of a damper on the unbridled enthusiasm that vitamin D was the answer to cancer prevention that many have been seeking for some time.
 
No, the IOM did not endorse vitamin D as a cancer prevention agent.  And based on what they could say from the literature, the panel did endorse the concept that vitamin D is important for bone health, while blood te…

Original post by Dr. Len’s Cancer Blog and software by Elliott Back

An article just released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in their weekly publication “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report” provides an assessment of the progress we have made in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
 
Clearly, since 1971, we have made substantial advances in the cancer treatment.  We have become a larger and older nation.  We have pushed the threshold for the diagnosis of cancer, with breast and prostate cancers as leading examples.
 
The result is that we have many millions more people alive with cancer today than was ever the case in our history.
 
But with the progress also comes cautions about what the data means, and where our journey must go if we are to address some of the key issues reflected in these statistics.
&nbsp…

Original post by Dr. Len’s Cancer Blog and software by Elliott Back

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, and Rich Condit
On episode #123 of the podcast This Week in Virology, Vincent, Alan, and Rich talk about XMRV integration sites in prostate tumor DNA, the decline effect and scientific method, and the first virus of Caenorhabditis nematodes.
Right click to download TWiV #123 (67 MB .mp3, 93 minutes).
Subscribe to TWiV (free) in iTunes , at the Zune Marketplace, by the RSS feed, by email, or listen on your mobile device with the Microbeworld app.
Links for this episode:

Analysis of XMRV integration sites from human prostate cancer (Retrovirology)
Integration site preference of XMRV (J Virology)
The Decline Effect and the Scientific Method by Jonathan Lehrer (New Yorker)
Why most published research findings are false (PLoS Medicine)
Cochrane Rev…

Original post by virology blog and software by Elliott Back

Integration of retroviral DNA into the cellular genome is essential for the production of new infectious particles. A strong argument that the novel human retrovirus XMRV is not a laboratory contaminant is the finding that viral DNA is integrated in chromosomal DNA of prostate tumors. Nucleotide sequence analyses of 14 integration sites in prostate tumor DNAs from 9 different patients previously revealed the expected viral sequences linked to human DNA. But two of these integration sites are identical to those found in a prostate tumor cell line infected with XMRV.
A search of the nucleotide sequence database with the previously identified XMRV integration site sequences revealed that 2 of the 14 sequences (from 2 patients) were identical to two XMRV integration sites in DU145 cells. This…

Original post by virology blog and software by Elliott Back

« Older Posts — Newer Posts »