Scope of Preclinical Testing Versus Quality Control Within Experiments

To the Editor:We would like to congratulate Drs Philip, Benatar, Fisher and Savitz1 on their recent evaluation of quality in preclinical stroke studies, but also wish to clarify a reference they made to our own observations, which we believe are consistent with their findings.Dr Philip et al stated that “O'Collins et al using their own set of guidelines concluded that NXY-059 nearly achieved all their quality criteria (9/10), but subsequently one of the authors provided a reanalysis in a subsequent publication (reporting that the drug achieved only 4.5/10 criteria).” The criteria used by O'Collins et al2 were based on the STAIR recommendations for preclinical testing,3 and as detailed in our …