Millions of women might be reducing their risk of breast cancer without knowing it. New studies suggest that certain osteoporosis drugs they are already taking might substantially cut their risk of breast cancer.

Roni Caryn Rabin puts skepticism high in the story for The New York Times. “Neither study was a randomized clinical trial, and several top cancer doctors expressed skepticism about the findings, saying they prove only an association and may reflect the fact that women with bone problems who are most likely to take the medications have a lower breast cancer risk to begin with,” she wrote.

Before getting to that, however, she tells readers the two studies involved were observational studies based on a retrospective analysis of data. Rabin knows what that means, and I do, too, and so do many of the Tracker’s readers, I’m sure. Without appearing to talk down to readers, however, should we assume that they all know what those things mean, especially if they’re reading while trying to juggle their morning coffee and Froot Loops? (Sorry, this is the Times–their morning coffee and steel-cut Irish oatmeal?) The relevance of those terms is that they show that these studies aren’t nearly as persuasive as other kinds of studies. Why not just say it that way?

Shirley S. Wang at the Wall Street Journal writes a serviceable story under a San Antonio dateline but makes a mistake that I made during most of my career at the AP. She refers to the drugs in the lede as bisphosphonates. She doesn’t mention brand names until the 9th paragraph in the online version of the story. Quick–is Boniva (the Sally Field one) a bisphosphonate? Gotcha! It is, but I didn’t know that either, until the 9th graf of Wang’s story. (And, happily, it gave me the opportunity to run this picture of Sally Field before she had osteoporosis.) Readers know their medications by the generic or brand names, not by the chemical class. If we want to write ‘em a story that will do them any good, let’s use the names they’s likely to know, such as (in addition to Boniva) Fosamax and Zometa.

The Chicago Tribune caught me with an attention-grabbing lede: “New results from a landmark women’s health study raise the exciting possibility that bone-building drugs such as Fosamax and Actonel may help prevent breast cancer.” But it’s apparently not so exciting after all: The Trib–in its online story, where it has as large a news hole as it wants–devoted an extravagant 152 words to this exciting news.

Others:

AP: Marilyn Marchione uses the brand names in her short, to-the-point lede and the skepticism in the third graf, in clearly understandable terms, with a forward-looking nod. “More definitive studies should give a clearer picture in a year or two,” she writes. Nice.

Reuters: Osteoporosis meds may cut breast cancer risk.

CBS News online: Count on television, even online television, to call this exciting but tentative research a “breakthrough.” (The report itself uses a question mark after “breakthrough”; the YouTube replay drops the punctuation.)  And that from a correspondent identified as a doctor, who should know the difference between a retrospective, observational study and a clinical trial. And early in the report, “BISPHOSPHONATES” appears on the screen.

- Paul Raeburn

This entry was posted on Friday, December 11th, 2009 at 3:48 pm and is filed under Health & Medicine Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.