Test? What test?
This story about a “test” for sleep apnea in children is based on a study that merely suggests targets for research in possibly developing a test of proteins in urine. The conclusion of the study authors was, “Future studies aiming to validate this approach as a screening method of habitually snoring children appears warranted.”
Reporting? What reporting?
This story lifts quotes from a news release issued by the American Thoracic Society without attribution. It does not include any independent sources (who likely would have pointed out many caveats and limitations in the study and the news release). And it fails to note the financial conflicts of interest of the researchers, even though these conflicts were clearly noted in the journal article summarizing the study.
Medical research is full of examples of ideas that appeared promising – only to fail during further research and development. News stories should not jump ahead of what the evidence actually shows.
In most cases, a story about preliminary research would not be expected to include a discussion of costs. However, because this story implies that the test is near at hand, costs should have been addressed, especially since the story pointed out that sleep studies are expensive.
This story improperly implies that, without expensive sleep studies, sleep apnea in children may go untreated. Review articles point out that pediatricians routinely manage such cases successfully without needing sleep studies.
For example see “Obstructive sleep apnea in children: in the March 1, 2004 issue of American Family Physician: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.liboff.ohsu.edu/pubmed/15023015
There is no mention of potential harms, such as the risk that false positive results of a test based on this research might cause some children to be treated for a condition they don’t actually have or that false negatives could mean some children with a serious condition might not receive timely treatment.
Based on this story most readers would likely believe that a urine test for sleep apnea in children will be available soon, when actually the research is at a preliminary stage and far more study and development is needed. The study the story is based on included only 120 participants and did not deal with many of the practical hurdles that would need to be overcome before it is known whether such a test will work in routine clinical practice. Although the story includes quotes from one researcher who notes that their findings “open up the possibility” that a simple test could be developed and that the results of this study need to be validated, these caveats are relegated to the bottom of the story. The story does not provide adequate information on the sensitivity and specifity of the test and the positive and negative predictive values.
By failing to note that children who have breathing problems during sleep are typically diagnosed and managed successfully in regular clinical practice, this story unduly alarms parents by depicting a hidden, lurking threat to their children.
This story fails on both counts. There is no independent source to provide perspective on the study. In the conflict of interest statement that is included with the published article on their study, the authors note a number of financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies.
Although this story mentions sleep studies, it fails to note that sleep apnea in children is routinely diagnosed by pediatricians through clinical examinations. Indeed, a review article on sleep apnea in children (American Family Physician, March 1, 2004) notes that the use of sleep studies is controversial and that experts in this area say these expensive overnight studies are not required for diagnosis.
The headline and lead of this story refer to a test even though (as the quoted researcher points out near the end of the piece) the proposed test has not been validated or developed.
For a number of years a variety of researchers have published studies suggesting that protein patterns in urine might be useful someday to help screen children with breathing problems during sleep. This story does not explain what is new about the results of this study compared to earlier work.
This team of researchers concluded that their latest trial produced more accurate results than earlier attempts, but that point was not included in the news story.
The quotes in this story are lifted from a news release distributed by the American Thoracic Society.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-12/ats-utf120209.php
Systematic, Criteria-Driven
Monday at #ADA2021, an infectious disease epidemiologist, a journalist, and a researcher shared perspectives on communication of risk in the era of COVID-19: http://ow.ly/ROfR30rMeE7 @AstleyCM @garyschwitzer @berthahidalgo @ADA_DiabetesPro
Shoutouts to @susan_bewley @drkevinknopf @MichaelBaum11 in this call for more than fawning coverage from press releases for these kinds of stories.
Also, linked history inside goes back 5 years just on Grail apparently trying to become Holy Grail. https://twitter.com/garyschwitzer/status/1408849696416841731
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