Medical research in the news: What's the scoop?
There you are, relaxed in front of the television at the end of a long, crazy day. Your ears perk up when the local health reporter starts talking about a new medical study. It demonstrates that the radiation from mobile phones can cause changes in human cells, which just might affect the brain. Panic runs through you as you flash on the thousands of cell phone minutes you logged this month. But, you think: "Didn't all this go away? Wasn't there a study just a little while ago saying it was safe to sit with the cell phone glued to my ear?"
Herein lies the dilemma. Every week we are inundated with conflicting information about healthcare research issues — reports about the effectiveness of the newest cancer drugs to the safety of electromagnetic fields. The $64,000 question is: Which information should you act on to safeguard your health and that of your family?
Caveat emptor
Is the study reliable?
Where was the study published?
You are not a mouse
For your protection
Caveat emptor
In Latin, it means "buyer beware" and, more than ever, it applies to the explosion of healthcare research information in the mass media. Often, popular medical-research reporting lacks the necessary depth of information that is critical to assessing the relevance of a study. Too often, all we're given is a sensational sound bite that either scares us silly or presents an unrealistically rosy picture.
Is the study reliable?
Beyond asking your physician to assess a study — always the best idea when the health of your family is truly at stake — Virtua's vice president of medical affairs
Joseph Reichman, MD, outlines some important criteria to consider. "First, find out where the original research was done and where the study was first published. For example, if a major university, an established foundation, a government institute, or a well-regarded hospital or drug company has done the research, you know that it comes from a reliable source."
Where was the study published?
Next, look at where the results from the original study were first published. Highly reputable medical publications such as the
New England Journal of Medicine and
Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) are peer-reviewed journals. Here, the scientific and medical peers of individuals submitting work assess a study to make sure the work adheres to scrupulous scientific principles. Many newspapers, magazines and TV shows do not require peer review of medical research that is reported. This means there may be a question as to the reliability of the results.
In addition, national newspapers like the
New York Times and the
Washington Post, both of which can be found on the Internet, are also excellent sources of medical research information. So are Internet sites such provided by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the Mayo Clinic and, of course, www.virtua.org.
You are not a mouse
Before you jump to any conclusions about the promise of a new drug study, learn if it was tested using humans or animals. Few drugs that show promising results in animals directly translate into promising results for humans. And while it's essential that this preliminary work is done and reported, it's equally important to understand how the results relate to you as a human being.
Dr. Reichman, who is also president of the Academy of Medicine of New Jersey, adds: "The most reliable studies are also randomized, 'double blind' studies, where neither the investigators nor the subjects know whether they are giving or receiving the research drug." Studies done over many years that involve thousands of people are a far better indicator of a drug's effectiveness than short-term studies involving fewer people. Other variables with a direct bearing on interpreting the results of a study include details about the participants' medical conditions, genetic predispositions, family histories, environmental factors, age, race, and gender to name just a few.
For your protection
Jane Slaterbeck, administrator for the Virtua Institutional Review Board, outlines the human protection process. "Before any protocol or plan for testing a drug is ever considered for humans — whether it's to kill cancer cells or to stop the common cold — it must go through a review process by an independent board called an Institutional Review Board or IRB. The federal government mandates the boards and the primary goal of the boards is to protect all human participants."
At Virtua, there are two IRBs: one reviews only cancer research; a separate one involves all other medical studies. The Virtua oncology IRB is made up of cancer nurses, an American Cancer Society representative, obstetric and gynecologic physicians, a radiologist, surgeons, a member of the clergy and many other individuals. Among the many studies that have gone through the Virtua IRB Cancer Board are SELECT, the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial for prostate cancer, and STAR, the Study of Tamoxifen and Raloxifene for the prevention of breast cancer. Both of these are long-term, multi-facility investigations involving tens of thousands of individuals.
To learn about the many clinical trials for cancer now being conducted through the Fox Chase Virtua Health Cancer Program, call 1-888-Virtua-3.