watch where the curves separate, not just whether they do
Posting this as a discussion rather than a claim: watch where the curves separate, not just whether they do.
Relative risk reduction without the baseline rate is uninterpretable. A large relative reduction on a small absolute risk is a small absolute benefit.
Open-label extensions lose their randomisation. Anybody still enrolled at week 104 is a selected group and the numbers describe that group.
Cardiovascular outcome trials are powered for events, not for weight, and are typically run in a different population with different inclusion criteria. Reading a weight number out of one is reading a secondary endpoint.
Ask me anything specific. Anything general I will probably get wrong.
best — the order this archive was captured in
Discontinuation rates are a tolerability result. A trial with a strong efficacy number and heavy discontinuation is telling you two things and people only quote one.
The press release said that; the publication says something more hedged. Worth reading both.
How to read one of these papers in fifteen minutes, in the order that actually helps.
Start with the registered protocol and check the primary endpoint against what is reported. Then the methods: who was included, what the comparator was, how long the randomised phase ran. Then the discontinuation numbers, which are a tolerability result and are usually in a supplementary table.
Only then the efficacy figure, and read the interval rather than the point estimate. Finish with the limitations section, which is where the authors say what they actually think.
Fifteen minutes, and you will know more than any thread summarising it.
FLOW was kidney outcomes and it is the one nobody quotes
Retitled: the original quoted a diabetes endpoint as an obesity result.
Yes. The appendix tables are where the subgroup and the adverse event detail actually live.
Absolute or relative risk reduction?
Absolute or relative risk reduction?
Agreed. And the interval, not the point estimate, is what the trial actually established.
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Small fix — that was the cardiovascular outcomes trial, so weight was a secondary endpoint and the population was different.