Adding the numbers, since they settle part of this. A quick sanity check on any figure quoted here: is it mean or median, is it intention-to-treat or completers, and what was the comparator. Three questions, and they resolve most disagreements in these threads.
One thing that is still open after sarah_TO’s answer:
How to read a result like this without either dismissing it or over-reading it, since the summaries all read like press releases?
anders_CPH said:A quick sanity check on any figure quoted here: is it mean or median, is it intention-to-treat or completers, and what was the comparator.
Coming at anders_CPH’s question from a different direction. Read four things before the headline number. The population, because trial populations are selected and supported in ways that real cohorts are not. The comparator, because "better than placebo" and "better than the current standard" are different claims and get reported identically. The primary endpoint as pre-registered, because a secondary endpoint promoted after the fact is a hypothesis rather than a finding. And the completion rate, because a large effect in the half of participants who finished is a different result from a large effect in everybody enrolled.
I would rather be corrected than agreed with, if it comes to it.
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Update — my curve sits below the published mean and the explanation is that the trial arm had support I do not have. That was reassuring rather than otherwise.
Dr.PeteFamMed said:Read four things before the headline number.
Right, and the exception is worth naming rather than left implied, because the exception is where people get into trouble.