"Medicine's Secret Number"

[Darrell]

Here's an interesting article on treatment statistics that uses statins as an example:
[http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1590464,00.html]

[Biologist]

Good find, Darrell.

Thanks. :)

Biologist

[cjbrooksjc]

Darrell: I wonder, would anyone you might ask in the medical profession even know what the NNT acronym meant; much less the value for the Rx they were prescribing. It's a very interesting and reasonable calculation though and something I had never heard of before, and I'll try to remember to ask my Dr/Pharmacist.

Thanks,

Brooks

[Ray Holder]

I haven't read the web page, but NNT usually means "Number needed to treat", in trial results, showing how many in that study had to be treated to give the number of beneficial actions which resulted from that treatment.

Ray