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.