One concrete data point for the thread. 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.
Following on from jim_asheville — and this may be the naive question:
How to read a result like this without either dismissing it or over-reading it, since the summaries all read like press releases?
PharmacoVig_BOS 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 PharmacoVig_BOS’s question from a different direction. Relative and absolute effects need reading together. A 20% relative reduction on a high baseline risk is a large absolute benefit; the same relative figure on a low baseline risk is a small one, and press summaries almost always quote the relative number because it is bigger.
Happy to go further on any of that.
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Shop Reference StandardsClosing the loop on my own question.
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.
VendorMark said:Relative and absolute effects need reading together.
Fair, and it stops being fair at the extremes. The middle of the range is well understood; the ends are where the honest answer is that nobody knows.
Correct me if the detail matters more than I have assumed.