Ann: Preliminary Top-line Results from SMARTCOUGH-C Study, page-324

sorry about being laid up. Lots of the dreaded lurgy going around in Oz. Sigh...

in simple terms, RAP results = statistical failure of the primary endpoint target of 75% agreement between the cough test and the clinical diagnosis

followed by SP crash and burn, now likely in the hands of DTs...

in more detail:

for the primary outcome, the pneumonia cell had a crappy 88 patients. I am not sure this sample size is big enough to give a statistically valid result. Bear in mind this is a group aged 29 months to 12 years.

It should have been a lot larger sample, with narrower age bands, imo.

In the trial, the cough test diagnosed pneumonia or an upper respiratory lurgy no better than a coin toss.

For asthma, the coin was a better predictor.

The company said many people already had "treatment" before the cough test, but they do not say whether this was an antibiotic, an inhaler etc, or for how long they were treated.

Similarly, there were "many" coughs with background noise interference.

The company will now scrutinise each and every result...about 1200 in all.