When a study published this spring showed that Avandia, a drug that lowers diabetics' blood sugar, also increased their risk of heart complications, Dr. Mary M. Newman, a Lutherville internist, was in a quandary about what to advise her patients taking the medication.
"It was easy for patients to feel the drug was proven to be dangerous and everyone was concerned," Newman said. "But the thing is, there were benefits." In the end, she said, the decision on whether to continue the medication varied with each patient.
Last week, assessing Avandia became even more complicated for Newman and her patients when an FDA advisory committee voted 20-3 in finding that Avandia increases the risk of heart disease in Type 2 diabetes, but at the same time the panel voted 22-1 to leave it on the market.
At a time when more information than ever is broadly available about illnesses and the effects - positive and negative - of the drugs used to treat them, doctors and patients are facing a growing challenge as they attempt to sort out the benefits and risks of medications and therapies.
Every week, professional journals and other sources report the results of new medical studies - a rising tide of information that sometimes seems contradictory. Patients can read the studies on the Internet, or read about them in newspapers, and bombard their doctors with questions that frequently don't have simple answers.
"So many patients go on the Internet now and with what the press bombards them with, they have a lot of information. They need to be able to understand the literature, so they can take it to the doctor and ask informed questions," said Erik Rifkin, a retired environmental consultant and co-author of The Illusion of Certainty, a new book that argues for increased clarity in the reporting of medical research.
Rifkin and his co-author, Edward J. Bouwer, both of whom live in Baltimore, say researchers should state findings in terms that are easier to understand. Statistics used in studies - and repeated in news reports - are often misleading, they say.
William Mohler ran into information overload last year when he turned to the Internet for help in understanding a condition that predisposed him to cancer.
The retired plant engineer had developed Barrett's esophagus with high-grade dysplasia, a condition that experts say carries roughly a 30 percent risk of developing cancer of the esophagus.
