Featured News Research

Nuno Sepúlveda – “When PACE-Gate Meets Sample Size Calculations”.

Dr Nuno Sepúlveda – who completed his ME Research UK-funded project looking at the potential role of Epstein-Barr virus infection in the development of ME/CFS in 2023, has published a conference paper in the journal “ New Frontiers in Statistics and Data Science entitled “When PACE-Gate Meets Sample Size Calculations”.

The short paper – which is a summary of work presented at the “International Conference on Congress of the Portuguese Statistical Society”, highlights new statistical shortcomings of the PACE trial, including what Sepúlveda terms “inconsistencies between the theoretical assumptions underpinning the sample size calculations and the prior beliefs of the trial’s research team”. In addition, Nuno notes that the sample sizes reported by the PACE trial did not seem to take into account the multiple comparisons made in the analysis.

In the paper, Sepúlveda concludes that the statistical argument used by the authors of the now heavily criticised PACE trial to justify the sample size used is “suboptimal”.

This publication follows a Letter to the Editor of the Journal of Infection in which both Nuno Sepúlveda and Dr Francisco Westermeier highlighted several potential methodological issues of a systematic review on the prevalence of ME/CFS after a SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Verified by MonsterInsights