Congress Told of Breast Cancer Research Flaws

At least 11 institutions falsified data, failed to enroll patients properly or misplaced key data in a national breast cancer research project, officials told Congress on Wednesday.

A re-examination of clinical trial records at 120 of the 500 institutions participating in the National Surgical Adjuvent Breast and Bowel Project have found what one official called “serious problems” at sites including Memorial Cancer Research Foundation in Los Angeles and UC Davis.

Testimony about the troubled $9-million research project came at a hearing before a House subcommittee and included the first public testimony by Dr. Bernard Fisher, who until March directed the project. He took responsibility for what he called administrative errors.

Fisher was removed after it was disclosed that researchers at St. Luc Hospital and St. Mary’s Hospital in Montreal had been falsifying data.

Fisher had been in charge of the national cancer research effort headquartered at the University of Pittsburgh for 27 years.

The data falsification, which started in the 1980s at St. Luc, was known by project officials and by the National Cancer Institute for months before it became public.