In a new study from University of Texas M.D.
Anderson Cancer Center Dr. Sharon Giordano, an assistant professor of medicine in the department of breast medical
oncology, highlights the reality that some physicians may be influenced to prescribe cancer treatments as a result of
preliminary clinical trial results announced at medical conferences and by mass media reporting. In treating cancer
patients with unproven cancer therapies, and basing those decisions on the incomplete data of preliminary trials, the
physician and patient risk not only the disappointment if the therapy turns out not to be effective, but puts the
patient in harm's way from possibly damaging and toxic consequences in unforeseen side effects and complications of the
new therapy.In the past, hormone replacement therapy, HRT, Vioxx and Bextra cox-2 inhibitors, and Iressa, a lung-cancer drug that physicians began prescribing based on early findings, turned out to do more harm than good. With the advent of the Internet, and access to the latest medical news, cancer patients are much more informed today, and may be a factor fueling the push to try new therapies, before they are proven effective or safe. The researchers of this study caution everyone to ask basic questions before embracing a drug that has not completely gone through the testing phases to insure it will do what it is attributed with having the ability to do, and that it is safe.
1. Increasingly, targeted oral-dose anti-cancer drugs (like Iressa and Tarceva) are found to treat cancers effectively in those that it is helping, and seen as an intergral and necessary part of a patient's cancer care.
There are many cancer drug regimens, all of which have approximately the same probability of working. The tumors of different patients have different responses to chemotherapy. Tumors grow and spread in different ways and their response to treatment depends on these unique characteristics. The amount of chemotherapy that each patient can tolerate varies considerably from patient to patient. It requires individualized treatment based on testing the individual properties of each patient's cancer.
Therapeutic protocols currently in use are limited in their effectiveness, because they are based on the results of clinical trials conducted on a general population, yet no two patients are alike. Without individualized testing, it's difficult to determine which drugs are best for patients who don't respond to standard therapies.
There are over 100 different therapeutic drug regimens out there (400 are in the pipeline). Any one or combination of them can help cancer patients. The system is overloaded with drugs and under loaded with wisdom and expertise for using them.
Posted at 11:51AM on Mar 15th 2006 by Gregory D. Pawelski