Slow or non-healing fractures are painful, debilitating, and can cause deformity in the long term. They are a source of significant resource utilization from extended hospital or nursing home stays. At February’s Orthopaedic Research Society, researchers presented results from a new study showing that a form of parathyroid hormone, the drug teriparatide, marketed under the name Forteo, is benefitial in promoting the healing of non-healing fractures.
This story reports on the results of that study. The story is careful to describe the indication for the drug as being slow-healing fractures, which represents a small percentage of the overall number of fractures.
The story describes the cost of the drug, which is quite high. However, the story should not have spent so much time describing the potential for the drug to prevent nursing home days without providing evidence to that effect.
The story provides some but not all of the necessary information on the evidence to support the use of this drug. The story mentions that the current study followed 145 patients with unhealed bone fractures taking Forteo but does not mention that there was no control group to compare the results to. Furthermore, the study has not yet been published and the full results have no been reviewed by other experts. These are important caveats that the story should have mentioned when describing the strength of the evidence.
It’s good that the story quantified the percentage of patients who had significant improvement after 3 months on the drug. But it could have been improved by providing more context around these numbers. For example, compared to what percentage without the drug or with some other drug?
The story describes the cost of the drug, which is quite high. The story should not have spent so much time describing the potential for the drug to prevent nursing home days without providing evidence to that effect.
The story quantifies the percentage of patients who had significant improvement after 3 months on the drug. The story could have been improved by providing more context around these numbers. For example, compared to what percentage without the drug or with some other drug?
The story mentions the unpleasantness of injection of the drug as a harm. The story could have described some of the other potential harms, such as infection from injection, dizziness and nausea.
The story provides some but not all of the necessary information on the evidence to support the use of this drug. The story mentions that the current study followed 145 patients with unhealed bone fractures taking Forteo but does not mention that there was no control group to compare the results to. Furthermore, the study has not yet been published and the full results have no been reviewed by other experts. These are important caveats that the story should have mentioned when describing the strength of the evidence.
The story does not exaggerate the seriousness or prevalence of non-healing fractures. The story is careful to describe the indication for the drug as being slow-healing fractures, which represents a small percentage of the overall number of fractures.
The story quotes one expert who is not affiliated with the drug company or the current study.
The story does not mention any other treatments for slow healing fractures.
The story does a good job of describing when the drug became available and roughly how many have been treated with it since it was approved.
Clearly parathyroid hormone injections are not a new idea, however teriparatide, or Forteo, is only recently approved for non-healing fractures.
Because the story used an independent source, it’s clear it didn’t rely solely or largely on a news release.
Systematic, Criteria-Driven
Come on, NY Times; you must do better than this. Important research doesn’t need hype and the “breaking news” BS doesn’t help readers or patients. https://www.healthnewsreview.org/2022/03/nyt-proclaims-breaking-news/
Our editorial team was blessed to have Sharon as a contributor during our best years. As this obit states, she was “kind, patient, wise, thoughtful and generous.” Thank you, Sharon; now rest in peace. https://journalism.wisc.edu/news/in-memoriam-sharon-dunwoody-1947-2022/
We’ve written about the hype of liquid biopsies for years (see link in comment below). And now this…. https://www.statnews.com/2022/01/12/medicare-shouldnt-cover-liquid-biopsies-early-cancer-detection/
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