Ovarian Cancer Breakthrough! Is it?

[hitmouse]

New drug combination offers ovarian cancer breakthrough
"The revolutionary treatment has been shown to significantly shrink tumours in almost half of patients with the disease"

Should really read: interesting results, needs more work to see if it really works.

What the title does not say is that n = 29, highly selected, and the results would not necessarily be reflected in real world outcomes. Especially when one starts quoting percentages for subgroups of the 29, which may be low single figures. This is a perennial problem with journos at a conference looking for copy, and buying the hype of a small phase 2 trial.

 

[Wayne Mack]

What the title does not say is that n = 29

I read it as a somewhat smaller sample, perhaps half that size, "The phase 2 trial ... tested the drug avutometinib alone and in combination with defactinib in 29 patients." Only the combination is reported as having results; the report is silent on the sand alone results. Regardless, using percentages in such small sample sizes distorts the results. A =/-1 change can significantly change the percent.

I would say the initial results are important and worth reporting. Including the raw numbers would have improved the report without requiring much additional space.

 

[hitmouse]

Normally one can look up the paper or abstract to check the details. However, as far as I can see, this is not actually published or presented yet: that will happen at a conference which starts on June 6th, and so "presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting in Chicago" is untrue.

Pre-publication hype reported as fact. A bit naughty.