"These biases may create a spurious knowledge base of cancer predictors that may be of no use and may be potentially harmful," conclude the authors. However, they caution that their study has several limitations, including the fact that a lot of information could not be retrieved, making it impossible to determine the true nature of the biases.

"We believe that this study provides the most compelling evidence yet that the published prognostic literature is a serious distortion of the truth," write Lisa M. McShane, Ph.D., of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, and colleagues, in an accompanying editorial. They call for more transparent reporting, better study design, appropriate analysis methods, more complete data collection, a requirement to make all data available, funding for collecting and annotating data, as well as a needed cultural change within the field of tumor marker research.

'"/>

Contact: Elana Hayasaka
jncimedia@oupjournals.org
301-841-1287
Journal of the National Cancer Institute
19-Jul-2005