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Is the Statistical Difference Clinically Relevant?

AOKh-Linz, Linz, Austria

To the Editor:

Clark et al¹ concluded in their extensive meta-analyses that the reduction of infection-related mortality was significant with an odds ratio of 0.51. Patients treated with colony-stimulating factors had a shorter length of hospitalization and a shorter neutrophil recovery time, hazard ratio 0.63 and 0.32, respectively. As a clinician, I am also interested if these significant differences are also of clinical relevance. Please give us the absolute difference between both treatments. I would highly appreciate it if the editor of the Journal of Clinical Oncology would take care that the interested reader finds absolute differences in the articles without having to do mathematical exercises. I would suggest on behalf of the busy readers that absolute differences, instead of relative differences or hazard ratios, should be reported in the abstracts.

Author’s Disclosures of Potential Conflicts of Interest

The author indicated no potential conflicts of interest.

REFERENCE

1. Clark OAC, Lyman GH, Castro AA, et al: Colony-stimulating factors for chemotherapy-induced febrile neutropenia: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. J Clin Oncol 23:4198-4214, 2005[Abstract/Free Full Text]

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Related Reply

• In Reply:
  Otavio A.C. Clark, Gary H. Lyman, and Benjamin Djulbegovic
  JCO 2005 23: 8537-8538 [Full Text]

This Article Full Text (PDF) Purchase Article View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a colleague Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Save to my personal folders Download to citation manager Rights & Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Fridrik, M. A. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Fridrik, M. A. Related Articles Related Reply Social Bookmarking                            What's this?