Doctors and researchers noticed that when cancer patients took beta-blockers because of their heart disease, they tended to live longer than other cancer patients. They decided to study whether beta-blockers significantly improve survival for several different types of cancer.
Everyone wants to find a cure for cancer, but some medical researchers are exaggerating the effectiveness of the treatments they study. In some cases, information about side effects and other risks are downplayed as well.
The National Research Center for Women & Families strongly supports the requirement of the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act (FDASIA) for an action plan to include demographic subgroups in clinical trials and data analysis. Greater diversity in clinical trials, analyzing subgroup data, and reporting the results and explaining the implications in product labels and MedGuides will shed light on which medical products are safe and effective for which demographic subgroups, including racial and ethnic minorities.
Patients with kidney cancer have many options for drug therapy but often experience bad side effects. As the FDA considers another drug option, we don’t think the science is good enough to suggest patients will have a longer and better quality life on this new drug. Instead, we recommend waiting for more clinical data to give doctors and patients a clear idea of when tivozanib would be beneficial rather than cause more harm.
Cancer studies are more likely to have positive results when the researchers have ties to the company that makes the product being studied.