Comparisons can be odious

Comparisons can be odious

When I first started working in the field of epilepsy, over 25 years ago, therapeutic options were much more limited than they are today. Surgery had not yet reached an established place in the management of intractable epilepsy and the pharmaceutical industry seemed little interested in producing better drugs for treating the condition with fewer side-effects. By comparison, with the pressure ...

If comparisons can be odious, so can assumptions

CORRESPONDENCE If comparisons can be odious, so can assumptions Dear Sir, We are writing in response to the article 'A cost minimization study comparing vigabatrin, lamot-rigine and gabapentin for the treatment of intractable partial epilepsy' that was published in Seizure 1996; 5: 89-95. There are some specific issues concerning the paper that we would like to raise. However, we would first li...

International comparisons: useful or odious?

Guest editorial International comparisons: useful or odious? Comparisons are odious, according to Shakespeare, but seldom are they odious to epidemiologists unless they involve unlike categories. The two new papers providing data on injuries to children and teenagers in Australia' and England and Wales2 painstakingly follow the format and data conventions set forth by Fingerhut et al in an earl...

Can hospital mortality comparisons ever be fit for purpose?

Comparisons within randomised groups can be very misleading.

When we randomise trial participants into two or more intervention groups, we do this to remove bias; the groups will, on average, be comparable in every respect except the treatment which they receive. Provided the trial is well conducted, without other sources of bias, any difference in the outcome of the groups can then reasonably be attributed to the different interventions received. In a p...