Cancer studies often downplay chemo side effects

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Doctors relying on studies published in top journals for guidance about how to treat women with breast cancer may not be getting the most accurate information, according to a new analysis. “Investigators want to go overboard to make their studies look positive,” said Dr. Ian Tannock, the senior author of the new study in the Annals of Oncology. In two-thirds of the 164 studies Tannock and his colleagues scrutinized, that meant not listing toxicities – in other words, serious side effects, whether of chemotherapy, radiation or surgery – in the paper’s abstract. …