PACE trial TSC and TMG minutes released

I am going to put something together on the objective measures at some point, but it's taking a while to get my brain in gear. In the meantime, here are all the mentions of The Lancet in the TMG/TSC minutes:

 

Thanks for that. The more of these I read, the more I think that I need to go through them methodically myself.

Yeah.... they were careful.

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)60172-4/fulltext

 

I've put Tom's comments on the PACE trial protocol all together into a PDF (with ref links) for ease of access, with @Tom Kindlon 's permission. Hope this is useful.

Let me know if you spot any glaring errors, and I shall fix forthwith.

[ @Woolie - Is this suitable to be added as a resource in the Science Library, maybe here https://www.s4me.info/threads/publications-from-the-pace-trial.60/ ?]

 

Yes, we have expanded it to information of all kinds.

 

Would it be useful to add a link there? I can't do it myself, because I don't have the necessary permissions.

 

Sorry for the delay @Lucibee.

Here is the link to the library entry:
https://www.s4me.info/threads/articles-that-are-critical-of-cbt-get.63/#post-1044

 

Thanks @Woolie

(sorry if I seemed impatient. It's a bad trait)

 

I've featured actigraphy in my latest blog post:
https://lucibee.wordpress.com/2018/05/09/pace-trial-whatever-happened-to-actigraphy/

 

Just noticed this in TMG minutes #4, re withholding/excluding treatments specific to CFS:


Thoughts?

 

It looks like a series of disconnected statements with a couple of grammatical errors to me. Presumably they thought that standard medical care should not include treatments that had been claimed to have an effect on CFS, even if without formal evidence. Which seems to imply that standard medical care really means b***** all.

I would love to know what trial equipoise is. Never heard of it.

 

From the ABC interview:

"Norman Swan: What were the doctors doing for them?

"Michael Sharpe: The doctors also had guidance on what to do and they do some very important things. The first thing, obviously, is to be clear with the patient what's wrong with them; then to give them some general guidance on not overdoing things but not resting too much; and if the patient wanted to assume a self-help approach, providing materials and support in doing that. The doctors would also prescribe medication for conditions such as pain, sleep problems and depression."

"Not overdoing things but not resting too much". This sounds like pacing advice.

Would be interesting to know who "equipoise" usage started with.

 

I guess by "trial equipoise", they are trying to indicate that they are not favouring any particular treatment over another, but I'm not sure they really had any control over their own implicit biases in that way.

wrt to the prescriptions, I though it was interesting that they noted that there were "putative" treatments for "CFS" already out there. (Did they meant potential rather than putative?)

 

By putative, I think they probably meant supposed treatments and don't take it to be an admission of potential efficacy.

 

It seems that there is a technical definition of 'clinical equipoise' in relation to trials which boils down to the idea that you should only test two options in a trial if the expert community is genuinely undecided about which is best. I am not sure what this has to do with the minutes usage because I am not clear what they are saying.

 

Are we going to need to start a "usage" usage thread @Jonathan Edwards?

 

Like 'Usage tomato and Isage tomAto?

Sorry, it just came into my head somehow.

 

Too much to-meta (tomato) for me. Sorry, that really was terrible.

 

Works for me

 

This from Wessely's book on Clinical Trials...