New Zealand Company News Bites, 1/18/2008Comvita Ltd says it is encouraged by the results of its 2006 "honey as adjuvant therapy for leg ulcers" trial by the University of Auckland, despite the British Journal of Surgery giving the impression the results were not in favour of honey.
CEO Brett Hewlett said the results of the trial, which used honey dressings on venous leg ulcers with compression therapy, were inconclusive because the sample size of participants was too small.
Comvita said the trial results showed a 5.9 percent increase in the healing rate for participants treated with honey at 12 weeks.
Mr Hewlett said while clinically important, the results did not reach statistical significance...
Mr Hewlett said while press releases about the trial said honey dressings were more expensive than usual care, when all costs were considered, including hospitalisation for the group that was not treated with honey, they were actually 5.8 percent lower...
Another case of the reporting of research causing confusion. A pity the journal could not be a bit more objective. Unfortunately most people only get a chance to see the headlines, and not the further details behind them. It appears that this research did show some positive aspects of the use of the manuka honey, but that much of the issue came down to a case of statistical significance due to the number of people participating in the HALT trial.
ReplyDeleteHopefully the trial can be considered positive enough when the actual details are considered, to encourage a greater number of patients to participate in subsequent research, and reduce the barrier of statistical significance.