Is the result statistically significant?
Look for p-values, and you may need to get out your bifocals. Look for exact values, and when these are missing assume the value is just less than the value you are given (e.g., p<.05 is probably p=.049). Confidence intervals have yet to make their appearance in the pharmaceutical literature. Is the result clinically significant? A result can be statistically significant but be clinically insignificant either because it is very small or because it is not a clinically important outcome. A recent ad for alendronate is instructive: On the left hand side of the page are very small (5-10%) relative increases in bone mineral density among subjects on alendronate. P-values of <0.001 are displayed for each of the three endpoints. However, p-values are missing on the right hand side of the page, where large risk reductions for vertebral fractures (35-63%) are given for patients on alendronate. These results were in fact not statistically significant. The clinically significant endpoints are tho
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