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Size, follow-up, data analysis—good; post hoc analysis, interpretation—not so much

It’s easy to know whether a critique of some article or other was written by a statistician or a methodologist—it states how badly the study was done and how incompetently the data were analyzed. Indeed, it is extremely easy to criticize any study, no matter how well it was conducted, because all applied research involves compromises of one sort or another. Well, be prepared for a surprise. In this column, we will be discussing a study that we believe was carried out well and analyzed correctly. That’s not to say that we agree with their conclusions (we don’t), but at least the study yields data that people can argue about without dismissing the paper as a whole.

 

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It’s easy to know whether a critique of some article or other was written by a statistician or a methodologist—it states how badly the study was done and how incompetently the data were analyzed. Indeed, it is extremely easy to criticize any study, no matter how well it was conducted, because all applied research involves compromises of one sort or another. Well, be prepared for a surprise. In this column, we will be discussing a study that we believe was carried out well and analyzed correctly. That’s not to say that we agree with their conclusions (we don’t), but at least the study yields data that people can argue about without dismissing the paper as a whole.

 

Click on the PDF icon at the top of this introduction to read the full article.

 

It’s easy to know whether a critique of some article or other was written by a statistician or a methodologist—it states how badly the study was done and how incompetently the data were analyzed. Indeed, it is extremely easy to criticize any study, no matter how well it was conducted, because all applied research involves compromises of one sort or another. Well, be prepared for a surprise. In this column, we will be discussing a study that we believe was carried out well and analyzed correctly. That’s not to say that we agree with their conclusions (we don’t), but at least the study yields data that people can argue about without dismissing the paper as a whole.

 

Click on the PDF icon at the top of this introduction to read the full article.

 

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Size, follow-up, data analysis—good; post hoc analysis, interpretation—not so much
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Size, follow-up, data analysis—good; post hoc analysis, interpretation—not so much
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Commun Oncol 2011;8:379–380
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