Like life itself
Pragmatic clinical trial. We all know how difficult it is to make a new drug available to people who can benefit from it. From the moment a promising molecule is identified and somebody thinks that it may be useful, until…
Science without sense...double nonsense
Evidence Based Medicine pills
Science without sense...double nonsense
Evidence Based Medicine pills
Category Epidemiology
The tribulations of maturity
Correct use of NNT. The NNT was designed to assess the beneficial effect of a treatment to reduce the risk of an unpleasant event occurring in an intervention group of interest, always with respect to what was observed in a…
And what about me?
Number remaining at risk. The number needed to treat is the most widely used measure of clinical impact in the analysis of the results of a clinical trial. However, the prognosis of patients in whom the outcome under study does…
A weakness
Calculation of NNT in meta-analysis. The calculation of NNT (number needed to treat) in meta-analysis is described using RR and OR, which are more robust against variability in baseline risk.
The guard’s dilemma
Sensitivity and specificity. The concepts of sensitivity and specificity, predictive values and likelihood ratios are described, as well as the use of ROC curves.