One would EXPECT weaker results when fewer patients of a clinical trial cohort undergo an efficacious intervention, especially when those who did not undergo the intervention are included in the tabulations. Such weaker results would tend to corroborate rather than refute the efficacy claim, however stronger results may not. DiPALS did not accumulate sufficient information to form an independent opinion on the merits of the intervention's value and thus can not responsibly argue the intervention has general value because they do not have enough data for making the case. They wanted to consider the possibility certain subgroups might benefit from the intervention but could only advocate future research strive for improving the differentiation of candidate cases.

An important issue here is saving a distressed clinical study when the syndrome under consideration is highly variant in its effect on patients and getting partial value out of the developed results.