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"New treatment eliminates bladder cancer in 82% of patients" - current HN title (matches article) I don't like headlines like this because they lack any necess
by ltbarcly3 1y ago
"New treatment eliminates bladder cancer in 82% of patients" - current HN title (matches article)
I don't like headlines like this because they lack any necessary context. Knowing that a treatment eliminates cancer in 82% of patients isn't data unless we know more or already experts in this field. For all I know the previous treatment was 99% effective but just cost more or something. PR-style headlines very often use misleading statistics to get attention, so this wouldn't even be surprising.
- What was the previous treatment's success rate? Was it 22% or 81%?
- What are the other tradeoffs? If the previous treatment was also 82% maybe this one doesn't cause incontinence, or maybe it's non-invasive?
How you should make a title:
"New treatment eliminates cancer in 82% of patients, a major improvement"
"New treatment is first non-invasive way to eliminates cancer in 82% of patients"
"New treatment way to eliminates cancer in 82% of patients - without causing incontinence"
"New treatment eliminates cancer in 82% of patients without radiation"
- tptacek 1y agoThis is 81% CR in patients who had already had recurrence and progression after front-line treatment, so neither of your concerns about the headline are relevant to the actual story.
- ltbarcly3 1y agoI don't think you understand my point, i don't have two specific concerns lol.
- tptacek 1y agoThe former point you made simply isn't addressed by the study, and the latter point effectively increases the percentage of patients that can be put in full remission; you're right, it's not 82% of all NMIBC cases, it's a superset of that number.
- ltbarcly3 1y agoMy point was that the title didn't contain enough context. The examples of 'improved' titles were purely demonstrative of titles that have some extra context to motivate what is special about this treatment - as in they are just made up to show what a good title would provide to give more context. You are missing the point completely.
- GoatInGrey 1y agoDumb question: why not rely on the article contents to provide context?
- ltbarcly3 1y agoDo you read every article? How do you decide which is worth reading?
- tptacek 1y agoBefore I slag them, I do.
- ltbarcly3 1y agoI didn't slag the article? I gave constructive reasons the title could be better.
- tptacek 1y agoApparently without reading the article!
- ltbarcly3 1y agoyes, that was my entire point. why are you having so much trouble with this? The title doesn't have enough information to inform us whether reading the article is worthwhile. If I actually read the article or not doesn't change whether the title has enough context to inform us whether we would want to read it. How are you not getting this?