Good News for new Cancer Treatments
Reported April 1, 2008
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — Researchers appear to be winning the war against cancer.
In a new study involving all of the phase III clinical trials conducted on new cancer treatments since the National Institute of Cancer began supporting such trials in 1955, researchers find new treatments are proven effective about a quarter to a half of the time.
Society has received a good return on its investment, write the authors. The public can expect that about 25 percent to 50 percent of new cancer treatments that reach the stage of assessment in randomized clinical trials will prove to be successful. This pattern of successes has become more consistent over time.
A randomized trial is one in which patients are randomly assigned to care groups and new treatments are compared with a placebo or standard care.
The current study involved 624 trials conducted since 1955. More than 200,000 patients were included in the analysis. While up to a half of the trials ended up benefiting patients, in 15 percent of cases, researchers identified breakthrough therapies, and in two percent, the death rate from the cancer in question was cut by more than 50 percent.
SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, 2008;168:632-642