Healthy Skepticism Library item: 17909

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Trotter G.
Why were the benefits of tPA exaggerated?
West J Med 2002 May; 176:(3):194-7
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071715/?tool=pubmed

Abstract:

News magazine US News and World Report began an article aboutthrombolytic treatment of acute stroke with the following anecdote:nn One Wednesday morning in January, 36-year-old Laurie Lucas was rushingabout, dressing her daughters for school and talking on the phone, when astrange confusion swept over her. She felt woozy. Her right arm flailed aboutand her right leg went weak. Paramedics arriving at Lucas’s Sanford, Florida,home thought she was having epileptic seizures, but brain scans revealed ablockage of an artery that supplies the brain with blood. Lucas, a physicallyfit former professional cheerleader, had suffered a massive stroke… If Lucashad been stricken a year ago, before a new treatment was developed, she almostcertainly would havedied.1(p62)nnThis story is interesting but misleading. It is not plausible thatphysicians could accurately conclude that Laurie Lucas “almost certainlywould have died” without treatment. Nor is it true that“massive” strokes are likely to benefit from thrombolytictreatment.2 Inaddition to several anecdotes, the US News and World Report articleincludes “expert” testimony in which prominent physiciansexaggerate the efficacy and effectiveness of the new treatment.

Keywords:
* Bias (Epidemiology)* * Communications Media * Data Interpretation, Statistical * Drug Industry * Fibrinolytic Agents/therapeutic use* * Humans * Stroke/drug therapy * Tissue Plasminogen Activator/therapeutic use*