Open AccessUsing and Interpreting Adjusted NNT Measures in Biomedical Research
Author(s) -
Ralf Bender
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
the open dentistry journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.428
H-Index - 25
ISSN - 1874-2106
DOI - 10.2174/1874210601004010072
Subject(s) - number needed to treat , medicine , absolute risk reduction , placebo , measure (data warehouse) , actuarial science , alternative medicine , computer science , population , data mining , environmental health , economics , pathology
The number needed to treat (NNT) is a popular effect measure to present study results in biomedical research. NNTs were originally proposed to describe the absolute effect of a new treatment compared with a standard treatment or placebo in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with binary outcome. The concept of the NNT measure has been applied to a number of other research areas involving the development of related measures and more sophisticated techniques to calculate and interpret NNT measures in biomedical research. In epidemiology and public health research an adequate adjustment for covariates is usually required leading to the application of adjusted NNT measures. An overview of the recent developments regarding adjustment of NNT measures is given. The use and interpretation of adjusted NNT measures is illustrated by means of examples from dentistry research.