SURMOUNT-1 and what the comparator actually was

Started 4 July 2025 · 19 replies · 180 hearts · read 3.5k times

XanBerlin, DE · 4 July 2025

about a year ago

SURMOUNT-1 and what the comparator actually was — putting it in its own thread so it does not get lost in the check-in.

I have read the paper and I am not sure I have understood it.

I have been trying to trace a claim back to its source and every trail ends at a summary of a summary, which is itself informative.

Evidence question. I would rather have an honest "we do not know" than a confident answer, and confident answers are all I have been able to find so far.

The figure is 1 and I would rather lead with it than bury it three paragraphs down and have somebody ask.

If anybody has the primary source, I would be very grateful for it — I have been going round in circles.

IzoldaVilnius, LT

The paper we read last month had a population nothing like most of this circle, which does not make it useless and does limit what it tells us.

10me too 5

PádraigGalway, IE

What surprised me was how readable most of these are once you stop being intimidated by the first page.

SunilFacilitatorBirmingham, UK

I am pleased with this thread. Asking what the best single piece of human evidence is tends to end in an honest "very little", and a circle where nobody minds saying so is rarer than it ought to be.

PamSouthport, UK

Sunil has already said most of this and I want to add the one part that was different for me.

I would say do read the supplementary material occasionally. Twice now the thing I wanted to know was only in there.

DoraUtrecht, NL

The registry entry is worth checking against the published paper, and on one occasion the outcomes we were reading were not the ones originally listed.

AbelAddis Ababa, ET

Well said, and thank you for taking the time over it.

7me too 9

TildaCambridge, UK

Reading Abel, I recognised more of that than I expected to.

Something practical: I write three sentences about each paper afterwards and I now have two years of notes I actually refer back to.

AnnaAthens, GR

My experience is that the group is much better at this than I am alone, because somebody always spots the thing I skimmed.

NissaHaifa, IL

My reading has got slower and better. I get through a quarter of what I used to and I understand considerably more of it.

NilsUppsala, SE

#10

Tilda has already said most of this and I want to add the one part that was different for me.

Something worth knowing: the difference between a trial and an observational study changes what you can conclude, and I did not know that two years ago.

NadjaBelgrade, RS

#11

What I would say is that an honest "we do not know yet" is worth more than a confident answer, and the papers say it more often than the coverage does.

FabianBasel, CH

#12

The trial that gets quoted most in general coverage is not the one that answers most of the questions people here actually have.

5me too 4

JunoBrighton, UK

#13

Building on what Nils wrote rather than answering the original question.

Something practical: I read the methods before the conclusions now, which somebody here suggested and which changed how much I trust what I read.

PerrineStrasbourg, FR

#14

I had to learn that an effect being statistically significant and it mattering to a person are two entirely separate questions.

RuthieLeicester, UK

#15

Reading Perrine, I recognised more of that than I expected to.

The withdrawal numbers in a trial usually tell you more about tolerability than the tolerability section does.

11me too 8

SaoirseKilkenny, IE

#16

I found the funding declarations worth reading, not as an accusation, but because they tell you what question somebody was paying to have answered.

OrphBath, UK

#17

Something worth knowing: the follow-up periods in most of what we read are short relative to how long people actually take these things.

SunilFacilitatorBirmingham, UK

#18

Speaking as a facilitator: we do not post protocols in this circle. Describing what a study did is welcome; presenting a schedule as established is not.

BlueStroud, UK

#19

Nothing here is medical advice, and a paper is not a recommendation for any individual person including the ones in it.