Cancer Treatment Centers of America

Cancer Treatment Centers of America was the subject of a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) complaint in 1993 alleging that CTCA made false claims regarding the success rates of certain cancer treatments in marketing and promotional materials. Among other unsubstantiated claims, CTCA advertised that it was able to treat certain forms of cancer through specific procedures such as "whole body hyperthermia" and "brachytheraphy”. This claim was settled in March 1996 with an injunction, requiring CTCA to discontinue use of any unsubstantiated claims in its advertising.[14] CTCA is also required to have proven, scientific evidence for all statements regarding the safety, success rates, endorsements, and benefits of its cancer treatments. CTCA was also required to follow various steps in order to report compliance to the FTC per the settlement. The injunction expired in 2016 with no violations over the 20 year period.[15]

In 2018, Truth in Advertising published a reporting that almost all major cancer centers engaged in misleading advertising. Of all centers studied CTCA spent the most money on such advertising in 2017. In particular, cancer experts reviewed CTCA's claims that its survival rates were better than national averages. CTCA compared its outcomes with the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. The experts said that CTCA's patients and SEER's patients were not compatible, and that the comparison was biased in favor of CTCA. For example, CTCA's patients were younger, and better-insured: According to Reuters, CTCA screened patients for insurance coverage, and "has relatively few elderly patients [and] almost none who are uninsured or covered by Medicaid". Furthermore, it "includes in its outcomes data only those patients 'who received treatment at CTCA for the duration of their illness' - patients who have the ability to travel to CTCA locations from the get-go".[16][17] [18][19] Additional details on CTCA treatment results on methodology and sources of information can be found on the issued CTCA treatment results publication.[20] L. Kirk Hagen, humanities professor at the University of Houston-Downtown, pointed out that in CTCA's Web site is a disclaimer that reads "[The CTCA] makes no claims about the efficacy of specific treatments, the delivery of care, nor the meaning of the CTCA and SEER analysis."[21] The Truth in Advertising report noted that the FTC "rewrote the rules governing the use of testimonials, in 2009, to say that such disclaimers are not sufficient because consumers believe that theirs will be the atypical experience depicted in the ad."[16]