Part 1. Definition
Generate an explanation for the given claim using the provided supporting material from the paragraph. Please consider the following points while generating an output. 1) The claim will always have supporting proof in the paragraph, and the paragraph will have a clear point of view supporting the claim. 2) There can be instances where direct correlation to the claim is not available. Make use of the sentences in the paragraph to provide a corresponding output supporting the claim. 3) The explanation should be at least one and at most twelve sentences long.
Part 2. Example
Paragraph: "Although the story didn't cite the cost of appendectomy emergency or urgent surgery and we wish it had, we nonetheless will give it a satisfactory score because it at least cited what the editorial writer wrote, ""A secondary benefit is the savings to the hospital generated by minimizing staff and anesthesiologist presence late in the evening and during the wee hours of the morning."" As with our harms score above, although the story didn't give absolute numbers, in this case we think it was sufficient for it to report that ""The scientists found no significant difference among the groups in the patients' condition 30 days after surgery or in the length of their operation or hospital stay."" Although the story didn't give absolute numbers, in this case we think it was sufficient for it to report that ""The scientists found no significant difference among the groups in the patients' condition 30 days after surgery or in the length of their operation or hospital stay."" Despite running less than 300 words, this story did an adequate job in explaining the quality of the evidence, including pointing out limitations. No disease-mongering here. The story meets the bare minimum requirement for this criterion in that it at least cited what an editorial stated. The focus of the story was on a study comparing emergency appendectomy with surgery done up to 12 hours later or beyond. This is the whole focus of the story and one we applaud when it begins: ""Appendectomy is the most common emergency surgery in the world, but it doesn't have to be."" There were no claims made about the novelty of this research, and we may have wished for a bit more context on this. Nonetheless, the potential for guiding future care decisions was made clear. Not applicable. Given that the story only pulled excerpts from the journal article and the accompanying editorial, and didn't include any fresh quotes from interviews, we can't be sure of the extent to which it may have been influenced by a news release.". Claim: Some appendicitis cases may not require 'emergency' surgery
Answer: We really don't understand why only a handful of mainstream news organizations reported this story. (At least in what we found.) The most common emergency surgery in the world. Rushing to emergency surgery may not carry any benefit. Waiting a few hours may be safer and less expensive. Why is that not a story? We applaud USA Today for finding time and space and clearly it didn't need to free up much space to do a good job telling the story. The story explains that as many as 300,0 appendectomies are done each year in the US. That figure alone explains why this is an important study to report.
Explanation: The output is an analysis of the claim while considering the paragraph as a reference. The output highlights the key features presented in the paragraph and explains the claim accordingly.
Part 3. Exercise
Paragraph: There was no discussion of costs. Costs would include treating the double digit rates of incontinence and erectile dysfunction in these younger men who do have surgery. The surgery may help them live longer, but many, especially since younger at time of surgery, live decades with these potential harms and folllowup costs of the surgical choice. This should get at least a line in such stories. While describing some of the differences observed in general terms without quantification, the story provided absolute percentage of men dying from prostate cancer in the two study groups. The story then went on to explain that the difference was in the men who were less 65 years of age at the time of diagnosis. The story would have been better if it had more clearly explained this important caveat about the benefit seen. The potential harms associated with various approaches to treating prostate cancer as well as the increased risk of prostate cancer progression and death seen in the cohort of men who followed the watchful waiting approach were discussed. The story did a laudable job of providing information about the study reported on including the fact that the results most recently published basically expand the timeframe of followup on these men which have previously been published. It provided insight about the number of men involved in the study, how their prostate cancer was detected and that the men had been randomly assigned to their treatment group. The story did not engage in overt disease mongering. Two clinicians who were not involved in the study provided quotes which were used in the story. The story included a list of the commonly available treatment options for early stage prostate cancer. But we must give an unsatisfactory score because the story included a factually incorrect statement indicating that watchful waiting is synonymous with active surveillance. It is not. The story went on to misinform readers by indicating "watchful waiting is often recommended when a man is not expected to die of the cancer" by failing to complete the thought by explaining that the reason they are not expected to die of the cancer is because their advanced age makes it unlikely that the cancer will have sufficient time to progress to lethality OR because they have other diseases from which they are likely to succumb before there is time for the prostate cancer to be deadly. An important caveat about how the prostate cancer in the study differed from the way in which prostate cancer is most commonly detected today in the US was explained. The story provided a reasonable view of the novelty of the treatment options detailed in the study along with the critically important caveat that the majority of the men in the study had their prostate cancer first detected at a later state than is seen with the current screening practices in the US. The story did not rely on a news release. Claim: Aggressive Treatment May Be Beneficial for Early Prostate Cancer
Answer:
As with the NPR and AP stories we also reviewed, this story helped frame this issue in the first few lines rather than burying it at the end as so often is the case. To have an expert not involved in study quoted in the second paragraph saying "findings are not likely to be practice-changing" provides readers with balanced perspective right from the start. It was also good that the story concluded with a quote that expanded on what it means to "individualize" treatment. Unlike the concluding quote in the NPR story, this one provided language suggestive of shared decision making by adding 'in relation to the risk stratification of disease, PATIENT DESIRES, health status, and RISK TOLERANCE". (emphasis added) Good way to end the story. Decisions about what, if anything, to do when facing a diagnosis of early stage prostate cancer is difficult and this story provided readers with useful information to consider.