Much botched news coverage of statins and cancer study

We’re seeing a lot of stories botch the reporting of the Danish study showing a statistical association between statin use and fewer deaths from cancer.  The emphasis we added is deliberate and important.  That’s all it showed.

At Reuters Health, Gene Emery got it right.  Excerpts:

• “Danish cancer patients taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs were 15 percent less likely to die…”
• “The study… did not look at whether the statins…can prevent cancer – only at what happens once cancer is diagnosed.”
• “the appearance of a benefit…”
• “a seeming benefit…”
• “But there is cause for skepticism. The people who took less than the recommended dose of a statin had a higher rate of survival than cancer patients who took higher doses. A positive relationship between dose and response is usually seen as evidence, at least, of cause and effect.”The absence of a dose trend might indicate that just some statin might be enough,” Bojesen said. “But this is just an observational study, so the exact dose and the exact mechanism is something we can’t clarify with this paper.”
• “Because this study was an observational study, the slightly lower cancer death rates among cancer patients who had used statins before their cancer diagnosis could have been caused by factors other than the statin itself,” Jacobs told Reuters Health. “People using statins may have been more likely to use aspirin, which has been linked with improved cancer survival in some recent studies.”

There should be little doubt in the minds of readers of the Reuters Health story that cause-and-effect was not established in this study.

The headlines of these stories generated by a Google search are misleadingly inaccurate because of how they emphasize cause-and-effect – “help fight cancer…lower risk of dying…cut mortality…can extend lives”.

• STUDY: CHOLESTEROL DRUGS HELP FIGHT CANCER

  FOX News Radio

• Statins Lower Risk Of Dying From Cancer

  dailyRx

• Statins cut mortality in cancer patients

  TheHeart.Org

• Cholesterol Lowering Drug Statin Can Extend Lives of Cancer Patients

  Medical Daily

Why does this matter?  Is this just an academic pursuit?  Just nit-picking wordsmithing?

It matters because it’s wrong.  It’s inaccurate.  Accuracy is a journalistic principle.

It matters because it misleads readers.

It matters because many experts already believe we’re over-prescribing statins and we shouldn’t ascribe “benefits” that haven’t been established, leading to even more potential over-prescribing.

We just had a national election that didn’t dwell enough on health care costs.  We need to do a better job educating the public – not whipping the worried well into a frenzy over unproven ideas.

Comments

Gary Schwitzer posted on November 9, 2012 at 8:38 am

Thank you for your note and for your open-minded acceptance of our critique.

Sincerely,

Gary Schwitzer
Publisher

Viridiana posted on December 7, 2012 at 10:36 am

Breast cancer is definitely not a one-size-fits-all disease, nor is the breast cancer therapy plan that accompanies it. Patients should be treated as individuals and have their treatments planned tailored as such.