The study of a cancer test seemed like a triumph. But some data were missing
The journal Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases is not widely known for its high drama. So it might come as a surprise that in 2018, it published a letter to the editor that would end up drawing curse words from urologists and making biomedical executives nervous.
Scientists at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center were writing to point out that a recent study about a diagnostic test had left out data showing how many potentially aggressive tumors might have been missed. Would the authors kindly publish those numbers?
Two of the study authors responded, and refused.
Later in 2018, a colleague of the letter-writers — a biostatistician who’d helped develop a competing product — followed up directly with the test’s manufacturer, Beckman Coulter, asking for the missing data to be released. The company had funded the study, and six of the 12 authors were Beckman employees. The response? Talk to our lawyers.
“It is our practice not to release raw data that could be subject to misinterpretation or misuse or is outside the parameters of the published study,” explained Beckman Coulter spokesperson Roslyn White in an email to STAT.
But when asked to review the exchange in the pages of the journal, more than 10 experts unaffiliated with either camp — including oncologists,
