A new study found no evidence that conventional cancer treatments could extend or improve a patient's life. The same study found that these cancer drugs do not provide patients with a better quality of life.
According to blood cancer specialist, Dr. Vinay Prasad, most cancer drugs are approved based on initial results but these measures remain flimsy or untested. The results could dash the hopes of millions of cancer patients who rely on conventional treatments to treat the disease.
(Natural News) Many people would be surprised by how few medications are truly effective, with popular medications like antidepressants and statins having very poor records when it comes to actually solving the medical problems they are designed to address. In the latest disappointing news in this regard, a recent study published in BMJ shows that there is no conclusive evidence that many of the cancer drugs approved in Europe extend patients’ lives or provide them with a better quality of life.
In fact, after being on the market for five years, just 11 of the 68 drugs approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) between 2009 and 2013 showed a “clinically meaningful benefit” on the European Society of Medical Oncology’s scale. Even in the cases where drugs did cause survival gains over the existing treatments, the gains were often just marginal. The drugs improved a person’s quality of life in just one-tenth of the uses.
It’s not just Europe that is dealing with this problem; in an editorial accompanying the paper, blood cancer specialist Dr. Vinay Prasad said that “it’s virtually the same numbers” in the U.S.
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