Number needed to treat (NNT) in clinical literature: an appraisal

Number needed to treat (NNT) in clinical literature: an appraisal

BACKGROUND The number needed to treat (NNT) is an absolute effect measure that has been used to assess beneficial and harmful effects of medical interventions. Several methods can be used to calculate NNTs, and they should be applied depending on the different study characteristics, such as the design and type of variable used to measure outcomes. Whether or not the most recommended methods hav...

Number needed to treat (NNT): implication in rheumatology clinical practice.

OBJECTIVE To calculate the number needed to treat (NNT) and number needed to harm (NNH) from the data in rheumatology clinical trials and systematic reviews. METHODS The NNTs for the clinically important outcome measures in the rheumatology systematic reviews from the Cochrane Library, issue 2, 2000 and in the original randomised, double blind, controlled trials were calculated. The measure u...

Number needed to treat (NNT); number needed to harm (NNH).

EXTENDED REPORT Number needed to treat (NNT): implication in rheumatology clinical practice

Objective: To calculate the number needed to treat (NNT) and number needed to harm (NNH) from the data in rheumatology clinical trials and systematic reviews. Methods: The NNTs for the clinically important outcome measures in the rheumatology systematic reviews from the Cochrane Library, issue 2, 2000 and in the original randomised, double blind, controlled trials were calculated. The measure u...

Number needed to treat (NNT): estimation of a measure of clinical benefit.

The number needed to treat (NNT) is becoming increasingly popular as an index for reporting the results of randomized trials and other clinical studies. It represents the expected number of patients who must be treated with an experimental therapy in order to prevent one additional adverse outcome event (or, depending on the context, to expect one additional beneficial outcome), compared to the...