text_1: In Small Test, Experimental Prostate Drug Shows Promise
text_2: Notwithstanding the headline, this is a story about two drugs for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer – Provenge, a drug recently approved by the FDA for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer and XL184, a compound currently under study. Combining the information for these treatments is a bit confusing. The news about XL184 reflected results which at that point had not yet been presented at a cancer conference in Berlin. While indicating that it is too early to say whether XL184 actually affects the cancer, the story should have reminded readers of the importance of things like quality of life and survival time. And there isn’t evidence about those factors yet with XL184. At issue is that, while advanced prostate cancer is a challenge, not all men with advanced prostate cancer would benefit from Provenge, though the story neglected this. And it is not clear that XL184 is of benefit to anyone. News about results from a small study that is still ongoing cannot carry enough caveats. It is really too early to know whether XL184 really shows promise or not. It is bad enough when journalists write glowing stories based on reports from scientific meetings. This story goes one step beyond that and reports on the outcome of a small trial before the scientific meeting has even been held. Although there are numerous caveats embedded in the story, it still provides a rather optimistic view of a drug based on early testing in 20 men. For reasons that we don’t understand, the story only reports on 20 of the 99 men enrolled in the study and only reports on the more positive results (those related to bone scans). This selective reporting provides the readers with a very limited and imbalanced view of the study results.