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0 pointsblrgeek16y ago0 comments

If 95% of the patients would have MS symptoms continue for two years at least, then having only 27% of the patients show symptoms 2 year on, is insanely significant statistically.

Similarly, if the average number of active lesions stayed at 50% for a control group, and fell to 12% for the test group, that's statistically significant.

Even if the group is small if the observed deviation is high then the observation is significant! Sample size is only half the story.

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streety16y ago

I appreciate that the effect is medically significant but the intervention was conducted at just one centre. Can it be repeated or is it particular to this centre? There are many, highly statistically significant, results published which faded into obscurity because nobody was able to repeat the results. I hope this isn't the case here but until it is repeated we can't know for sure.

The other point to note is that this article has been written for mass consumption and as such highlights the good but perhaps also misses the problems. I've had a quick look for a peer-reviewed article. I've found this (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2647682/?tool=pu...) which I think talks about the initial part of this study but it doesn't include the 2 year follow up.

I really do hope this is as positive as it initially sounds but there is still some way to go yet.

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