Edzard Ernst, the first professor of complementary therapy in UK, made headlines when he termed the Prince of Wales as snake oil salesman for the Prince’s support for complementary and alternative medicines (1).
I wonder what Edzard Ernst would think of prostate radiotherapists using very sophisticated technology to adminster high doses of radiation, when there is definite evidence of harm without any evidence of overall survival benefit (2)(3)(4)(5).
References:
1. Edzard Ernst: the prince and me. BMJ 2011; 343 doi: 10.1136/bmj.d4937
2. Glatstein E. The return of the snake oil salesmen. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2003;55(3):561-2
3. Jackson T. Don’t beam me up just yet. BMJ 2012;344:e2805
4. Dearnaley D et al. Escalated-dose Conformal Radiotherapy for Localised Prostate Cancer: Long-term Overall Survival Results From the MRC RT01 Randomised Controlled Trial. European Journal of Cancer, 2011(47), Supplement 2: 11-12.
5. Furlow B.US urology clinics overprescribe prostate radiotherapy.The Lancet Oncology 2011(12):122.
Rapid Response:
Re: Don’t beam me up just yet
Edzard Ernst, the first professor of complementary therapy in UK, made headlines when he termed the Prince of Wales as snake oil salesman for the Prince’s support for complementary and alternative medicines (1).
I wonder what Edzard Ernst would think of prostate radiotherapists using very sophisticated technology to adminster high doses of radiation, when there is definite evidence of harm without any evidence of overall survival benefit (2)(3)(4)(5).
References:
1. Edzard Ernst: the prince and me. BMJ 2011; 343 doi: 10.1136/bmj.d4937
2. Glatstein E. The return of the snake oil salesmen. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2003;55(3):561-2
3. Jackson T. Don’t beam me up just yet. BMJ 2012;344:e2805
4. Dearnaley D et al. Escalated-dose Conformal Radiotherapy for Localised Prostate Cancer: Long-term Overall Survival Results From the MRC RT01 Randomised Controlled Trial. European Journal of Cancer, 2011(47), Supplement 2: 11-12.
5. Furlow B.US urology clinics overprescribe prostate radiotherapy.The Lancet Oncology 2011(12):122.
Competing interests: No competing interests