On sunday I was reviewing the figures and had the same speculation about the red and yellow bars in Fig 7. I sent an e-mail to both Dr. Goldman and to the media contact person at NWBO asking for a clarification of the colored bars and whether more info on each patient (2 vs 6 million cells, method A vs method B) could be provided in the near future.
I did not hear back from the media guy and I got the stock e-mail letter from Dr. Goldman that has been posted by others on the board. No specific info about the color code was included.
Some random thoughts on the data posted.
1) everyone's attention has been focused on method A vs method B data as supporting a positive effect of treatment. It seems that the improvement in outcome for the 6 million dose vs the 2 million dose would in the same way provide evidence that the treatment is working. The 2 million results could be viewed as a form of control for the results with the higher dose.
2) If nwbo set out to compare the effects of method A vs method B at the begining of the trial, then Pyrrh's theory of patient bias doesn't make sense. Clearly the trial would start with the low dose (2 million) as it is a safety trial. Rationale trial design would dictate giving some of the low dose patients cells produced via method A and others cells produced by method B. Thus, early patients would have received both method A and method B cells. If one the other hand, nwbo switched methods in the middle as a result of method A not giving good results, then the above is not a valid argument.
I have been a share holder and a reader of this board for just 6 months. Perhaps others who have been around for a longer time can remember when nwbo first mentioned comparing 2 methods of dendritic cell production in the phase I trial.
