Background:
Facts Boxes…
communicate the best available evidence about a specific topic in an easily understandable manner. The most important pros and cons are contrasted with each other in a table, thus allowing even people with no medical or statistical background to make competent decisions.
The idea…
of Facts Boxes was developed by Lisa Schwartz and Steven Woloshin. They could demonstrate in several studies that the general public could be successfully informed about harms and benefits of medical treatments via facts boxes.
Sources:
Schwartz LM, Woloshin S, Welch HG. (2007). The drug facts box: providing consumers with simple tabular data on drug benefit and harm. Med Decis Making 27:655-62.
Schwartz LM, Woloshin S, & Welch HG. (2009). Using a drug facts box to communicate drug benefits and harms: two randomized trials. Ann Intern Med 150:516-27.
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Tamoxifen is an agent used to treat breast cancer. It has also been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the prevention of breast cancer in women at high risk for breast cancer. Would this be sensible for you?
Medical questions often have no black-and-white answers. For this reason, transparent information is crucial – as is the courage to make informed, autonomous decisions for oneself. To help you with your decision, we have prepared a facts box with independent and easy-to-understand information about the harms and benefits of this agent.
The numbers relate to 1,000 high-risk women taking tamoxifen for 6 years, compared to 1,000 high-risk women taking a placebo during the same time.
The facts box shows that Tamoxifen reduced breast cancer incidence from 24 to 13 in 1,000 women. This effect had no influence on breast cancer mortality: The number of women who died of breast cancer (or other causes) remained unchanged.
With tamoxifen, the number of threatening complications increased: 7 instead of 4 women experienced blot clots in their legs or lungs, and 9 instead of 3 women developed invasive uterine cancer.
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