Hi Gary, I think they developed a method of diagnosis earlier than their journal article on the same subject.
Plus we know that patients before may have, depending on very specific circumstances, either 1) been put put into that special arm, that was created for rapid progressors; or 2) they crossed over earlier than they should have, skewing the PFS number against DCVax, whereas if they were the placebo, it would have no impact and the rapid progression would not be pseudoprogression; but then, 3) their survival data was likely better than the standard of care, if DCVax did well.
I do think it matters very much on the PFS measure, which is just a proxy for survival, with a good quality of life, which is the goal for all cancer drugs.
The reality is, if it was a safety issue and it caused the partial halt, then everything about the halt, about court cases, about the journal article and just about every disclosure since then, would be seriously screwed up in my view. And I do not think that is the case by any stretch of the imagination because there is no motive for all of those doctors, for regulatory agencies, for courts and judges and all manner of obvious persons who would necessarily know the facts, one way or the other, to collide with NWBO and it’s management and hide these details. The view that it basically failed, is in my view, incorrect because of the survival data. The view that it was a safety issue would create countless lies and liars, all at some level knowing liars. That seems impossible to me. There are people who think this way, I realize. But it’s not rational.