Treatment Success in Cancer

摘要

We read with interest the conclusion by Djulbegovic et al that "society has received a good return on its investment" in the National Cancer Institute-sponsored cooperative oncology group trial system. However, we are concerned that reporting 70% of the trials as "negative results (not statistically significant)" may be interpreted by some as 70% of the trials being unsuccessful. This would be far from true because a trial that shows that a new treatment is not superior to the standard treatment is an important result and a successful trial. Although the further categorization of these not statistically significant trials into various "inconclusive" categories is not fully defined in the article, it appears to be problematic.