5 ms·

They don't know that the patients will die. There is a survival rate of somewhere between 10-50%. The patient will likely die if you do nothing, but it isn't

They don't know that the patients will die. There is a survival rate of somewhere between 10-50%. The patient will likely die if you do nothing, but it isn't a certainty. That said, I don't think there was anything wrong with giving it a go when they have pretty poor odds.

HelloMcFly 12y ago
From what I was reading about this Ebola outbreak, most of the "survivor" percentages were from those who hadn't yet had the illness long enough to die or be certain they will live. There is a lot of uncertainty about the death rate for Ebola in a given outbreak, this one included. While trying to find a description of this, it looks like FiveThirtyEight put something together on the exact topic: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/we-still-dont-know-how-deadly-the-ebola-outbreak-in-west-africa-will-be/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/we-still-dont-know-how-de... As for using experimental drugs, there are certainly times when the probability of death may seem dramatically increased for one patient relative to the overall survival numbers. "Certainty" for a population is one thing, "certainty" for some patients can be more (but not entirely) clear.
- rayiner 12y ago
  There was a quote in an article yesterday, where a doctor at Emory basically said: our treatment strategy with Ebola is just to keep the patient alive long enough for the body's immune system to fight the disease. People don't die of the bleeding per se, but the fluid loss and organs going into shock: http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-ebola-virus-20140801-story.html http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-ebola-vi.... A doctor in that article estimates that the mortality rate with proper medical care is more like 45-55%. So the proper base rate to consider for an experimental treatment with respect to U.S. persons is not the 90% mortality rate in Africa, but the ~50% mortality rate that might be expected of someone in a hospital here in the U.S.

HelloMcFly 12y ago

From what I was reading about this Ebola outbreak, most of the "survivor" percentages were from those who hadn't yet had the illness long enough to die or be certain they will live. There is a lot of uncertainty about the death rate for Ebola in a given outbreak, this one included. While trying to find a description of this, it looks like FiveThirtyEight put something together on the exact topic: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/we-still-dont-know-how-deadly-the-ebola-outbreak-in-west-africa-will-be/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/we-still-dont-know-how-de... As for using experimental drugs, there are certainly times when the probability of death may seem dramatically increased for one patient relative to the overall survival numbers. "Certainty" for a population is one thing, "certainty" for some patients can be more (but not entirely) clear.

rayiner 12y ago
There was a quote in an article yesterday, where a doctor at Emory basically said: our treatment strategy with Ebola is just to keep the patient alive long enough for the body's immune system to fight the disease. People don't die of the bleeding per se, but the fluid loss and organs going into shock: http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-ebola-virus-20140801-story.html http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-ebola-vi.... A doctor in that article estimates that the mortality rate with proper medical care is more like 45-55%. So the proper base rate to consider for an experimental treatment with respect to U.S. persons is not the 90% mortality rate in Africa, but the ~50% mortality rate that might be expected of someone in a hospital here in the U.S.