Users' Guides to the Medical Literature
Guyatt G, Rennie D, Meade MO, Cook DJ
Part B Therapy
Chapter 11.2. Example Numbers Needed to Treat
Ignacio Ferreira-González, Christina Lacchetti, Gordon Guyatt, P. J. Devereaux
Consider, for instance, the Global Utilization of Streptokinase and Tissue Plasminogen Activator...
Topics Discussed:
alteplase, cost effectiveness, economic analysis (cost-effectiveness), myocardial infarction, number needed to treat, streptokinase
Excerpt:
"The NNT, the number of patients the clinician must treat
for a particular period to prevent 1 adverse target event (such
as a stroke) or to create a positive outcome (such as a
patient free of dyspepsia), may be the most attractive single measure.
Arithmetically, the NNT is the inverse of the ARR.
Clinicians could therefore simply take the ARR from a randomized
controlled trial (RCT), calculate
its inverse, and derive an NNT for their patients. Such an
approach, however, can be profoundly misleading...."
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