Reading SURMOUNT-1 without the press release

The arithmetic in post #3 is right; the assumption feeding it is the part to check.

The failure mode on reading SURMOUNT-1 without the press is boring rather than dramatic. It is almost always the step everyone assumes was done correctly because it is too simple to get wrong.

Nothing to add, except that this is the answer I would give if asked.

One more thing on reading SURMOUNT-1 without the press that took me far too long to see: the two figures people quote are not measuring the same quantity. Once you notice that, the apparent contradiction disappears.

SURMOUNT-OSA is notable because it used an objective physiological endpoint, the apnoea-hypopnoea index, rather than a symptom scale. Two parallel trials, with and without positive airway pressure, addressed the confounder directly. The reduction was substantial in both.

Noting that the question and the thing people usually mean by it are different.

SURMOUNT-4's randomised withdrawal design is the strongest available evidence about what happens on stopping. It says nothing about a lower maintenance dose, because the comparison was continue versus placebo rather than continue versus less.

That is the version I use. It may not be the version that is correct.

Two questions I would want answered before drawing anything from the reading SURMOUNT-1 without the press data above: how were the cases selected, and what happened to the ones that dropped out.

On reading SURMOUNT-1 without the press, I would rather understate and be corrected upward than overstate and be quoted. That is a house style here and it is a good one.

On post #102 — agreed on the reasoning, with one qualification.

Categorical response thresholds — the proportion reaching ten, fifteen or twenty per cent reduction — are more persuasive and less informative than the mean. They depend entirely on where the threshold was drawn.

A single observation, in a thread that deserves better than single observations.

Adding the measurement that post #116 says would settle it.

Counterpoint on reading SURMOUNT-1 without the press, offered without confidence: the same observation is consistent with a much duller explanation, and nobody has ruled the dull one out.