Doctors won't get first look at cancer-meeting papers

A leading organization of cancer doctors is changing the way it releases information to be presented at its huge annual meeting, one year after there was an unusual level of trading in biotech stocks after abstracts went out to its members but before data in the studies was made public, the Wall Street Journal's Health Blog reports.

This year the American Society of Clinical Oncology will make summaries available to all comers on May 15 -- not just doctors -- two weeks before its three-day conference convenes in Florida, the Journal reports. Some abstracts and study results won't be released until May 29. That's in contrast to previous years, when oncologists received summaries of studies several weeks ahead of time, under an agreement not to disclose their contents.