BMJ 1995;311:1022 (14 October)

Letters

Predicting acute maxillary sinusitis

Trial may have lacked power

EDITOR,--Jens Georg Hansen and colleagues report a significant association of the C reactive protein concentration and erythrocyte sedimentation rate with acute maxillary sinusitis.1 Their conclusion that the symptoms and signs included in their logistic regression were not associated, however, is not warranted from their analysis. They do not report results of stepwise exclusion of factors from the regression. If this had been carried out, factors such as age, maxillary toothache, maxillary pain, and purulent nasal discharge might have reached significance when less significant items were excluded.

The number of patients who completed the study (n=174) is appreciably smaller than the number studied by van Duijn et al2 (n=441). This may also have contributed to the lack of power to detect significant symptoms and signs.

In a letter responding to van Duijn et al's paper3 Fleming and I calculated bayesian probability scores (B scores) from their . . . [Full text of this article]


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Relevant Article

Predicting acute maxillary sinusitis in a general practice population
Jens Georg Hansen, Henrik Schmidt, Jorn Rosborg, and Elisabeth Lund
BMJ 1995 311: 233-236. [Abstract] [Full Text]

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