Thanks IMK. I would assume ALL results reported by pharma are exaggerated at best and likely often fabricated.

I've mentioned this before but I think it's crucial to understand that pharma can and does report results mostly on their successful trials and hides the results of the unsuccessful trials.

That being said, this trial was absurdly tiny considering how many people have completed this tx and trials just w/vets are particularly tricky for the reasons mentioned.

So, although I believe these statistics may be accurate, there's nothing in that article to convince me of that.

"oh numbers, numbers, numbers.." (twirling wrists and rolling eyes) lol

Ok guys. Something real wrong here. The Interferon&Riba the old SOC treatment with out the 3rd agent had a 43% success rate.So now with the 3rd is 33% ? Whats wrong with this picture?

I always had said the numbers were cooked up, as everyone was falling out like fly's , many people dropped out as they have started, a lot more than the 20% drop out claims. As we find it out from an other report/warning the morbidity rates were a lot higher in real life circumstances than on the trials.

Yikes! If this is true... just reeks! And Kat certainly has mentioned before about how pharmas report only the "good stuff" - but ... how can the FDA let them get away with that? Well, the same FDA approved Interferon, so that kind of says it all.

So - this is also something that applies to the trial reports from the NEW DAA's and protease inhibitors (Sofosbuvir, Ledipasvir, Daclatasvir, Simeprevir ....) - right? We just don't KNOW the whole truth!

That said, many of us in later stages are waiting and will no doubt (at least myself) try to "cure" with the new drugs coming out soon. As long as the sides aren't too bad, I guess it's worth taking a chance ... the sides of Incivek are HORRIFIC, and the sides of Victrelis not much nicer ... and from what I've read, no sides of any signficance (or shall I say, "noticeable" sides) with Sofosbuvir and Ledipasvir - can't remember about the others in trials. But IF these "new kids on the block" might mean the virus mutates fast, hides and comes back - and then is even harder to treat - hmmmm. Guess we all just keep informed, find doctors we trust (not easy sometimes) and make decisions as the drugs become available.

Cat- I'm still worried that even though I'm undetectable somehow the virus is just hiding somewhere in very low levels and may yet again rear its ugly head. I may have gotten rid of hcv for now but my pessimism and paranoia are ever present.

I posted this before but this is really interesting, and at around 7:00 minutes in, it talks about how most of the trial results are never released. Worth listening to when washing dishes or whatever.

http://www.onthemedia.org/story/304578-portraying-medicine-the-perils-of-painting-by-numbers/

Telaprevir-related morbidity more common in real-world practice than trial settings

ORLANDO, Fla. Anurag Maheshwari, MD, transplant hepatologist at the Institute for Digestive Health and Liver Disease at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, discusses his poster, Sa1059: The Experience with Telaprevir-Based HCV Therapy in Community Practice Does Not Mirror the Clinical Trials Data, at Digestive Disease Week 2013.

Maheshwari notes that the morbidity associated with telaprevir-based treatment is much greater in real-world practice than had been indicated previously. He urges caution among clinicians in the administration of telaprevir, and stresses the need for rigorous side-effect management protocol and adequate long-term follow-up for patients with HCV receiving this treatment.

http://www.healio.com/infectious-disease/hepatitis-resource-center-2013/anurag-maheshwari-md-on-telaprevir-based-hcv-treatment

The lies are coming out.Will be a class action lawsuit very soon i know it. We have been fed with the golden spoon with the trial data by Vertex.

When those triple trials were going on, remember how excited we all were? We weren't being told about horrible sides and low results. Now that the non-Interferon and non-Interferon and Riba trials are going on, we're reading about few or no sides, high results, even cure. We just have to hope and pray it's all true. What choice do we have?

The way I read it only 9 of the 48 achieved SVR. My feeling is that it was the non responders (me) that drag the numbers way down. Non responders make up a huge chunk of the HCV population. Triple worked best for relapsers.
As a non responder to SOC my Drs did not even suggest I attempt again with triple.
I suspect that is why The Dr. at the Liver Centre restrains from much excitement over new drugs. They sometimes prove to be less than the stellar results conveyed by the Pharmas

Comments from Dr. David Wong last April were:
David Wong
"So many hep C studies - how to make sense of them all? As a first approach, I think you need to give the study a "degree of difficulty" rating - something similar to a diving competition. Did they study easy patients or difficult patients? To answer this question, look for the following that might make the difficulty level go up: Do at least 25% of patients have cirrhosis? Did they allow genotype 1a or only allow genotype 1b? Did they allow IL28b CT or TT or did they only include IL28b CC? Did they allow patients who failed prior treatment as null responders? partial responders? or did they only include relapsers and treatment naive? The truly impressive combination will handle all of these with SVR rates over 90%."

Statistics can be presented to support any conclusion you want

Is the statistic we should care about the number of people who START TX and get SVR, or the number of people who FINISH TX and are SVR

If someone drops for non compliance, which i can easily understand considering the terrible SX, should they count in the stats are not being cured?

When I started triple about 2 years ago the SVR percents they quoted, which i think were in the high 80%, were clearly based on completing treatment

And if the 'wrong' type of candidates (genotype, cirrhosis, abusive behavior) are in the study is it really representative of what YOUR success rate will be?

I failed twice on SOC, I'm SVR on triple. Mileage may vary, but for me it was a success

Congrats Joe. You are similar to Gotahorse and Karma and others who had tried a few times. They were relapsers not non responders as many of us are. THe also were succesful with triple. Triple is know to work well for relapsers. Were you a relpaser or nonresponder on previous attempts?

When the nonresponders where added into the triple trial results you can see the success rate drop way down ..waaaaaaaaay.
That is what I believe this study's intent was. To present "real world" rates, not controlled trial results.
see:
http://www.hepmag.com/articles/hepatitis_victrelis_null_2501_22268.shtml

LM, frankly I'm unclear if I was relapser or non responder

For the first attempt I completed treatment as undie, then once i stopped SOC the VL rose back to the millions. Clearly a relapser

But the second time they stopped me after a few months because i didn't get undie, so that sounds like a non responder

What's odd is that the two attempts were essentially done with the same meds, the only difference is that the second time the interferon was pegylated. And it was pegylated when i successfully did triple

With all the people on this forum, and two years of watching it, it sure seems to me that we're doing well better than 33%

Interferon seems to have no effect on bad keyboarders either (me) lol
Need COFFEE! :0
Again congrats Joe..a hard battle you fought a few times but finally won!