Dr.AddMedPHL said:The gap between trial results and real-world results is consistent and it is not fraud.
I read this differently from Dr.AddMedPHL, on substance rather than tone. I would add the less popular caveat: these trial populations under-represented several groups, older adults and the highest BMI categories among them. The results probably generalise, and "probably" should be stated as an assumption rather than dropped.
The figures, for anyone assembling their own picture. 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.
Dr.BariatricHTX said:I would add the less popular caveat: these trial populations under-represented several groups, older adults and the highest BMI categories among them.
Coming at Dr.BariatricHTX’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.
Sigma-Aldrich — Research-Grade Standards
Certified reference materials, analytical reagents, and research-grade standards for peptide verification. Trusted by laboratories worldwide.
Shop Reference StandardsFollowing on from fiona_glasgow — 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?
Closing 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.