ABSTRACT NUMBER: ESOC2026A1808 REVERSE CHERRY PICKING IN LARGE RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIALS—RESULTS FROM THE DISTAL TRIAL
Alexander Stebner, Vera Aebischer, Michail Panagiotis Giannakakis, Nikki Rommers, Alex Brehm, Urs Fischer, Marios Psychogios · 2026
Read ABSTRACT NUMBER: ESOC2026A1808 REVERSE CHERRY PICKING IN LARGE RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIALS—RESULTS FROM THE DISTAL TRIAL by Alexander Stebner, Vera Aebischer, Michail Panagiotis Giannakakis, Nikki Rommers, Alex Brehm, Urs Fischer, Marios Psychogios (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13145510.txt.
Description
Alexander Stebner and co-authors check whether the sickest stroke patients were quietly kept out of a big treatment trial, in a 2026 conference abstract. The DISTAL trial tested clot removal for strokes in medium and far vessels, and it found no clear gain. One worry is cherry-picking in reverse: doctors may have treated the patients most likely to gain outside the trial, leaving a milder pool inside.
The team reviewed 273 patients who fit the trial's rules but got clot removal outside it, at the trial's busiest centers. Those patients came in sicker, with higher stroke scores and bigger starved brain zones. More of their clots sat in a near branch vessel. After adjustments, their 90-day function still trailed the trial group. A second look showed doctors picked higher-need patients for the procedure. The authors urge care when reading the trial's flat result.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Alexander Stebner, Vera Aebischer, Michail Panagiotis Giannakakis, Nikki Rommers, Alex Brehm, Urs Fischer, Marios Psychogios |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 4 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |