I previously wrote an article raising critical issues concerning Progenics AZEDRA, a radioactive therapy for the treatment of patients with malignant and/or recurrent pheochromocytoma and paraganglioma, who cannot be helped by surgery or current chemotherapy. On August 31, Progenics presented data from AZEDRA’s pivotal phase 2b study at the international symposium on Pheochromocytoma and Paraganglioma. This article is an update.
The trial results
From Progenics’ press release on August 31:
‘Study results show that treatment with AZEDRA produced clinically meaningful and durable responses across multiple study endpoints, including radiographic tumor response, tumor biomarker response and overall survival.’
While the above statement is not untrue, Dr. Pryma and Progenics are not indicating to the medical community and the public that these are composite results, combining two parts of one trial conducted by two different companies. The trial was started in 2009, and finished in 2016, but with a gap between 2010 and 2015.
