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Health Canada has approved a new drug for advanced kidney cancer, the first new treatment option for the disease in more than a decade.
Renal cell carcinoma is the most common form of kidney cancer. In 2006, it will affect an estimated 5,000 Canadians, and 1,550 will die from the disease, according to the Canadian Cancer Society....

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This story is hampered by being particularly short, but even in the small amount of space used, it could have done a better job of providing meaningful information about this new treatment for kidney cancer. Among the story's chief flaws is an over reliance on the press release and the lack of any outside, or corroborating information. It may well be good news that a new cancer treatment is available for kidney cancer patients but anyone interested in gaining useful insights about this product will have to look elsewhere for information.

Even just a bit of simple digging would have made a much better and more informative experience for the reader. A quick search using google scholar (www.scholar.google.com) turns up a Medscape article that provided a bit more information, such as the drug's approval coming from a multicenter, double-blind, phase 3 randomized trial in 769 patients, and that the drug improved "median progression-free survival (PFS)" relative to placebo was 167 vs 84 days.

Among the commonly reported adverse events are "diarrhea, rash/desquamation, fatigue, hand-foot skin reaction, alopecia, nausea, pruritus, hypertension, vomiting, and anorexia. Grade 3 and 4 adverse events were reported in 31% and 7% of patients receiving sorafenib compared with 22% and 6%, respectively, of those administered placebo".

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