Improved quality of life, with no reduction in survival. This story hits the high points of an important study looking at overall survival in some breast cancer patients who face lymph node dissection of multiple nodes with its not infrequent life-long complications.
Strong points:
Areas for improvement:
Until now, if a patient has a positive node on a sentinel node biospy they then have additional lymph node surgery. Based on this study, which suggests there is no overall or disease-free survival benefit to ALND for the patients named above, there would be no reason for them to go through the additional suffering that often accompanies the procedure.
The article didn’t discuss any differences in the financial cost of the two approaches. Nor did it discuss whether insurers are likely to curtail coverage based on the new findings.
The story presented a brief quantification of the overall survival rate but would have been improved by using numbers of breast cancer patients who might be affected.
The story presented a clear statement regarding the lack of long-term evidence. However, it did not clearly quantify the potential harms of sentinel node biopsy and axillary lymph node dissection and compare them. How often do complications occur?
The story was specific about study population and the current and possible future effects on clinical practice. However, it didn’t address the fact that recruitment was stopped early because it would have taken 20 years to get the 500 deaths required to fully power the analyses, given that overall survival was so much higher than expected. The researchers were quite clear in their published manuscript about the possible limitations in their study.
There was no evidence of disease-mongering in this story.
The story identifies its journal source, and includes interviews with several independent clinical sources, as well as a statement from the Chief Medical Officer of the American Cancer Society. It did explain the NCI funding for the trial.
The article briefly mentions standard-of-care treatment and how that might be affected by this study.
The article appropriately defines to whom these findings would apply and briefly indicates not all physicians would be likely to adopt the findings immediately.
The article uses helpful quotes from breast cancer experts to establish the significant effect of this new information on clinical practice.
The story does not rely solely on a news release.
Comments
Please note, comments are no longer published through this website. All previously made comments are still archived and available for viewing through select posts.
Our Comments Policy
But before leaving a comment, please review these notes about our policy.
You are responsible for any comments you leave on this site.
This site is primarily a forum for discussion about the quality (or lack thereof) in journalism or other media messages (advertising, marketing, public relations, medical journals, etc.) It is not intended to be a forum for definitive discussions about medicine or science.
We will delete comments that include personal attacks, unfounded allegations, unverified claims, product pitches, profanity or any from anyone who does not list a full name and a functioning email address. We will also end any thread of repetitive comments. We don”t give medical advice so we won”t respond to questions asking for it.
We don”t have sufficient staffing to contact each commenter who left such a message. If you have a question about why your comment was edited or removed, you can email us at feedback@healthnewsreview.org.
There has been a recent burst of attention to troubles with many comments left on science and science news/communication websites. Read “Online science comments: trolls, trash and treasure.”
The authors of the Retraction Watch comments policy urge commenters:
We”re also concerned about anonymous comments. We ask that all commenters leave their full name and provide an actual email address in case we feel we need to contact them. We may delete any comment left by someone who does not leave their name and a legitimate email address.
And, as noted, product pitches of any sort – pushing treatments, tests, products, procedures, physicians, medical centers, books, websites – are likely to be deleted. We don”t accept advertising on this site and are not going to give it away free.
The ability to leave comments expires after a certain period of time. So you may find that you’re unable to leave a comment on an article that is more than a few months old.
You might also like