Using the number needed to treat in clinical practice.
The number needed to treat (NNT) is gaining attention as a method of reporting the results of clinical trails with dichotomous outcome measures. The NNT is defined as the number of patients who would need to be treated, on average, with a specific intervention to prevent 1 additional bad outcome or to achieve 1 desirable outcome in a given time period. Because it reports outcomes in terms of patient numbers, it is extremely useful to clinicians for making decisions about the effort expended with a particular intervention to achieve a single positive outcome. This special communication describes the NNT statistic and its utility for choosing clinical interventions.
Inland Northwest Health Services, Spokane, WA 99201, USA. dweeks@regis.edu
Douglas L
DL
Weeks
J Timothy
JT
Noteboom
D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic / Q000379:methods; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D006801:Humans; D012107:Research Design; D018570:Risk Assessment; D018401:Sample Size