Teacher: 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.
Teacher: Now, understand the problem? If you are still confused, see the following 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
Solution: 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.
Reason: 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.

Now, solve this instance: Paragraph: Costs of either new treatment approach are not discussed, nor whether they might be covered by insurance. Since the first-ever clinical trial of stem cells to regrow cartilage pads is ongoing, benefits cannot be quantified. A similar challenge in reporting benefits of cartilage plugs is that this approach doesn't appear to have any studies that support its use in cartilage (vs. bone), since this is an off-label use. While benefits aren't reported, it doesn't appear that there are any to actually describe just yet. The stem cell technique is quoted by the lead researcher as having "no safety problems." While this is suspect, since this is the first clinical trial, side effects or harms in humans may not be known. The article could have countered this quote with a statement that no side effects have been reported yet, which is different than that they don't exist. A potential harm talked about by someone not apparently involved in the research is that too much cartilage may be re-grown and there may not be a mechanism to turn it off, leading to unforeseen problems. For the cartilage plugs, harms of treatment are not discussed, although a question about their benefitwhether they even work in cartilageis raised. The story describes on-going research using stem cells to re-grow the cartilage pad, or meniscus, in the knee. The ongoing research is described as a clinical trial, with either a "dummy" or active injection given to patients (so there is a placebo or control group and this also implies patients don't know which one they've received, or that they're "blinded" to the intervention), and that researchers are blinded to which intervention patients have received. What's described is a randomized, controlled trial, which is the gold-standard in research. The other techniquecartilage plugsis being used for treatment that doesn't appear to have any research to support it, or at least not when used in cartilage (vs. bones). But, the article describes these circumstances to readers. The article provides a brief overview of knee injury or disease (arthritis) and the numbers of people who experience this. The article nicely states that the "holy grail" is repairing the cartilage of knee bones associated with arthritis typically age-related wear and tear. None of the treatments mentioned are anywhere near this. So for current patients suffering from knee pain due to degenerative arthritis, the options are conservative medicines (like ibuprofen) or knee replacement surgery. This article suggests an intermediate, less invasive approach. The current cartilage repair procedures aren't thought to work very well (thus the search for new ones). These aren't the first attempts to repair cartilage. Others have been tried, but generally haven't offered much benefit to patients. For the stem cell research, the article does quote a source who is apparently uninvolved with the research. This source provides some balance in noting that it's not clear whether this works, and specifically, whether this process can be turned off once enough cartilage is re-grown. For cartilage plugs, the same source comments with skepticism over whether these really work. Currently, the standard treatment option for meniscus tears is surgical removal of jagged edges that don't heal, which is mentioned in the story. Treatment alternatives for injured or damaged articular cartilage (vs. use of articular plugs) are described and include total knee replacement and surgery to "rough up" the edges to stimulate natural repair. Framing around what these new treatments hope to provide could have been improved, e.g. many of the intermediate procedures talked about in the article are trying to provide an option in the middle of either a very simple approach, like medications, or a pretty aggressive approach, like joint replacement. There are two treatment options discussed in the article. One uses stem cells from donated bone marrow. This technique is reported as part of the first-ever clinical trial using stem cells to regrow a cartilage pad in the knee, so readers know this option is not available yet outside of this research study. The second treatment approach uses cartilage plugs to fill in gaps or injuries to knee cartilage. The story states these cartilage plugs are FDA-approved for use in bones, but not cartilage, so the use described is "off-label." The article describes the stem cell option as new, which does appear to be true. It also describes the off-label use of cartilage plugs, implying this technique itself may not be new, but is being used in a new capacity. There have been prior attempts to repair cartilage that are not mentioned in the article, but these attempts have not provided much benefit. There is no obvious reliance on press release material. Claim: Doctors Test Ways to Grow Knee Cartilage
Student:
The article describes two potential treatments for knee problems: using stem cells donated from bone marrow to re-grow cartilage pads and using cartilage plugs, approved for use in bone, to fill in gaps in cartilage. The story does a good job of describing the evidence (either an ongoing clinical trial using stem cells to re-grow cartilage pads or the fact that cartilage plugs are an "off-label" use of an existing technology), although there are limitations to what we know or will know, which could have been clearer. For example, although the first-ever clinical trial of stem cells is ongoing, the number of participants is small and more studies will be needed before this would become widely available. The description of harms of either of these approaches could have been improved. For instance, letting a quote by the lead researcher (who has a conflict of interest) stand stating that there are no safety problems with the stem cell technique is a bit misleading. It's hard to believe there would be no side effects at all and the fact that this is new technology and that harms may not be known is different than they don't exist, which is implied. Yet the topic is an important one because better treatments for age-related arthritis of the knee are needed. Unfortunately, the techniques discussed in this article are only precursors of the types of treatments that may help the large number of older individuals suffering from knee arthritis. Even if these treatments provide benefit and are approved for use by the FDA, it will require future studies and many more years to bring successful treatments to the average patient.