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Fun with statistics; why you don't take trial results at face value
Rich just posted a new article about a comparison of cervical ADR to ACDF. I glanced through the summary and found yet another glaring example of the fun games that can be played with statistics and why it's important to not take these summary results at face value.
The trial statistics from the article are below: • Artificial cervical disc received by 621 patients • ACDF received by 592 patients • Mean ages in three FDA-IDE trials: 42-44 • Gender: 51 percent male, 44 percent female • Full 2-year follow-up completed by 94 percent of the arthroplasty group, 87 percent of the ACDF group. Given that this is a human trial and that humans have two genders that you'd hope a skilled surgeon could easily tell apart, you'd expect that the sum of the male and female patients would reach 100%. What happened to the other 5%? Obviously, there was some hiccup where 5% probably didn't have their gender reported or recorded but it does make you question the rest of the statistics and how careful the rest of the study was. The common engineering joke here is "In God we trust; all others bring data."
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Laura - L5S1 Charitee C5/6 and 6/7 Prodisc C Facet problems L4-S1 General joint hypermobility Jim - C4/5, C5/6, L4/5 disk bulges and facet damage, L4/5 disk tears, currently using regenerative medicine to address "There are many Annapurnas in the lives of men" Maurice Herzog |
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With that kind of statistical silliness, I can't help but wonder if they did actually have some hermaphrodites or cross-gendered folks participate. I'd hope they'd try not to let that happen for the sake of consistency in the study but still.... statistics make me giggle.
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************************* 31 yrs old Lumbar herniation L5/S1 - Did mild PT, some chiropractics and self regulated pain management since initial sports injury in Spring 1997. - XRay and Bone Scan Jan/Feb 2007 - PT March to May 2007 - MRI Jan 2008 - Disco positive at L5/S1 Feb 2008 - ADR surgery at L5/S1 on June 23rd 2008 - Prodisc - Recovery - so far so good! ************************* |
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