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In Reply to: RE: Is anecdotal evidence really all that useless? posted by Tweaker456 on April 18, 2017 at 14:27:01
-- and must be considered in light of that.In my early "pro" days, I worked for a biotech company with an interesting anticancer immunotoxin "platform". Their original Phase 1 studies (which are used to assess the safety of a new drug, and not its efficacy) were conducted not in healthy volunteers but in (relapsed) cancer patients who had failed conventional therapies for their specific cancer.
Several of these very sick patients exhibited partial remissions after treatment with the drug, and there was at least one total remission.
The drug later failed to demonstrate efficacy in a standard Phase 2/3 protocol (cancer studies, at least in those days, were typically NOT placebo controlled, for rather obvious ethical reasons).
The PR and CR results in Phase 1 were anecdotal :-) The study wasn't designed to demonstrate, much less quantify, efficacy, and the drug was later shown NOT to be efficacious in an appropriately "powered" study.
BUT, for the folks who exhibited CR or PR, it WAS indeed efficacious.
Anecdotal evidence.
Not "false evidence" -- just difficult to interpret.The company in question later developed a different platform for immunotoxins and subsequently did develop effective cancer drugs.
all the best,
mrh
Edits: 04/18/17Follow Ups:
Excuse me while I pick my jaw up off of the floor.
You did that sort of thing?! I'm impressed.
A little over a year ago, I told a nephew: "Pharmaceuticals." (Much as in the old film "The Graduate": "Plastics.")
:)
Still do some consulting.
Pretty satisfying line of work (despite the issues of cost to the payer).
all the best,
mrh
"Not "false evidence" -- just difficult to interpret." I would elaborate on your statement to say that many times it's difficult to interpret and many times it isn't , depending upon the situation. And many times it is actually false. T456
"The Borg is the ultimate user. They're unlike any threat your Federation has ever faced."
- Q, 2365
one doesn't know, e.g., if the CR was actually caused by the drug or that the correlation was simply coincidental .
As the statisticians love to say: correlation is not causation
all the best,
mrh
"correlation is not causation" More accurately would be to state that correlation is not necessarily causation. It may be or may not be. That is the question. T456
"The Borg is the ultimate user. They're unlike any threat your Federation has ever faced."
- Q, 2365
It took me a second, but then...
Hahahahahahahahahahaha!!
THAT is funny!
:)
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