International Journal of Epidemiology 2002;31:76-77
© International Epidemiological Association 2002
Special Theme: Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis |
Commentary: Relative treatment effects are consistent across the spectrum of underlying risks ... usually
The Division of General Internal Medicine, University of Alberta and The Institute of Health Economics, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Dr F McAlister, 2E3.24 WMC, University of Alberta Hospital, 8440 112 Street, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2R7. E-mail: Finlay.McAlister@ualberta.ca
To practice evidence-based therapeutics, clinicians have to integrate measures of efficacy and safety from the literature with their patient's unique risks and values.1 To do this requires two assumptions. First, we assume that we can accurately estimate our patient's underlying baseline risk (or the ‘expected event rate’ referred to by Furukawa and colleagues).2 This is no simple matter: while clinicians appear to be reasonably accurate in estimating the relative risks of different patients, even experienced clinicians perform poorly when estimating any one individual's absolute risk.3 Methods for estimating the expected event rate for a particular patient have recently been reviewed and will not be considered further
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