nnt = number needed to treat

[Guest guest]

From Mercola:

Medicine's Dirty Little Secret

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/05/08/medicine-s-dirty-l\

ittle-secret.aspx

There's one medical statistic doctors don't much talk about despite its

importance. It's called number needed to treat, or NNT. It's a measure

developed in the past 20 years, and it's one of the best-kept

statistical secrets in medicine.

The idea of *NNT* is simple enough. Most clinical trials look at how

much better people do on a particular medicine. NNT answers the

question: How many people have to take a particular drug to avoid one

incidence of a medical issue (such as a heart attack, or recurrence of

cancer)? For example, if a drug had an NNT of 50 for heart attacks, then

50 people have to take the drug in order to prevent one heart attack.

That doesn't sound like a lot, so pharmaceutical companies tend to keep

the number quiet and focus on broader, U.S. population-based statistics.

But that could be changed if you ask for the NNT up front the next time

you're handed a prescription.

Sources:

* Time February 15, 2007

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*Effective google search:*

nnt " number needed to treat "

Number needed to treat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The number needed to treat (NNT) is an epidemiological measure used in

assessing the effectiveness of a health-care intervention, typically a

treatment with ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_needed_to_treat - 29k

The Number Needed to Treat (NNT) is the number of patients you need to

.... For a more detailed look at the NNT measure, and an interactive

nomogram for ...

http://www.cebm.net/nnts.asp

Realizations in Biostatistics: The NNT returns

Jan 19, 2008 ... To review, the NNT is interpreted as the expected

number of people who need to be treated (including drug, duration of

treatment, ...

http://realizationsinbiostatistics.blogspot.com/2008/01/nnt-returns.html

Number needed to treat (NNT) [Jan 1999]

A number needed to treat (NNT) is defined by a number of

characteristics. This worksheet is designed as an aide memoir for

working out NNTs from papers and ...

http://www.jr2.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/band59/NNT1.html