Multiple sclerosis is a disease of the nervous system that causes severe weakness of the arms and legs, among many other damaging symptoms. Read the following excerpt from the abstract for this controlled experiment, and then:
a. Identify the treatment and response variables.
b. Restate the conclusion of the study in terms of a cause-and-effect conclusion.
"In this 12-month, double-blind . . . study we randomly assigned 1292 patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis who had a recent history of at least one relapse to receive either oral fingolimod at a daily dose of either 1.25 or 0.5 mg or intramuscular interferon beta-1a (an established therapy for multiple sclerosis) at a weekly dose of 30 µg. The annualized relapse rate was significantly lower in both groups receiving fingolimod-0.20 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.16 to 0.26) in the 1.25-mg group and 0.16 (95% CI, 0.12 to 0.21) in the 0.5-mg group-than in the interferon group (0.33; 95% CI, 0.26 to 0.42; P 6 0.001 for both comparisons).
Conclusions: This trial showed the superior efficacy of oral fingolimod with respect to relapse rates and MRI out comes in patients with multiple sclerosis, as compared with intramuscular interferon beta-1a."