title: Making Sense of Statistics in Clinical Trial Reports: Part 1 of a 4-Part Series on Statistics for Clinical Trials.
abstract: This paper is a practical guide to the essentials of statistical analysis and reporting of randomized clinical trials (RCTs). It is the first in a series of 4 educational papers on statistical issues for RCTs, which will also include statistical controversies in RCT reporting and interpretation, the fundamentals of design for RCTs, and statistical challenges in the design and monitoring of RCTs. Here, we concentrate on displaying results in tables and figures, estimating treatment effects, expressing uncertainty using confidence intervals, and using p values wisely to assess the strength of evidence for a treatment difference. The various methods and their interpretation are illustrated by recent, topical cardiology trial results.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Statistics, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom. Electronic address: Stuart.Pocock@LSHTM.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Stuart J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Pocock
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: John J V
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: McMurray
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Statistics, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Tim J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Collier
mesh_terms: D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D003626:Data Display; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D006801:Humans
keywords: clinical trials; interpretation; publication; statistics