Many new cancer drugs show 'no clear benefit', argues review

Conclusion Most of us assume that when a drug has been approved by a regulator for use, that means it has been shown to work. This study suggests that is not necessarily the case, or that even if it works they might not make a meaningful difference. The absence of evidence about the two outcomes that matter most to patients and their families – how long they will live, and how good their quality of life will be during that time – from half of the cancer drugs approved during a five-year period, is worrying. Patients cannot be expected to make informed decisions about which treatments to take, without good quality information on these outcomes. It can be difficult to carry out the best medical research that recruits enough people and follows them for long enough to get all the evidence needed for the drug, particularly for rare cancers. That's why people have come to accept the use of surrogate outcome measures, to make research more feasible and get new drugs to people with potentially incurable cancers more quickly in cases where time, or lack of it, is of the essence. But if surrogate measures are accepted at the time when drugs are approved, it is essential that information about survival and quality of life is collected and published in the following years. There are, however, some limitations to this study which should be noted: Researchers didn't look at how suitable trial designs were. For example, new drugs might be compared to an ineffective or minimally effec...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Cancer Source Type: news