I’m confused about the phrase could suggest in this passage. If the hypothesis in question were not true, how could the observed results have occurred.
Innumeracy? Seriously I agree that it doesn't make any sense. The only thing I can think of is that they aren't adequately describing one of the endpoints (and there are at least three endpoints that sound similar but get very different results). But I'd rack it up to temporizing - with some minor justification because there is always the chance that there is some numerical interaction you didn't think of.
For example a) the percent change in total atheroma volume is typically very different from b) the average percent change in atheroma volume. The former is the obvious rack up all the atheroma volume in the tested population before and after and see the percent change. The latter is to do the same calculation on a per patient (or per slice?) basis and average that. Note that I believe that #b is what reached stat sig in the ILLUMINATE trial. See below excerpt:
A secondary measure, the change in normalized atheroma volume, showed a small favorable effect for torcetrapib (P=0.02), but there was no significant difference in the change in atheroma volume for the most diseased vessel segment.
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