BMJ 2008;336:174 (26 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.39465.477373.3A
Letters
The treatment paradox
Pills in the sky
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How right Spence is—the marginal individual benefits of much modern medicine appeal only to population doctors and left the individual patient behind years ago, when we started treating "mild hypertension" (with a number needed to treat (NNT) of 800).1
With such a NNT, and a life expectancy of 20 years, how many of us will be eating "pills in the sky, in the sweet buy-and-bye" (to paraphrase the American working man’s hymn).
May I again propose this new statistic, pill in the sky, representing the total cost of treatment taken by those who will not benefit, to rank alongside numbers needed to treat and numbers needed to harm?
L Sam Lewis, general practitioner
1 Newport, Pembrokeshire SA42 0TJ
sam@garthnewydd.freeserve.co.uk
Competing interests: Cost versus benefit.
- Spence D. The treatment paradox. BMJ 2008;336:100. (12 January.) doi:10.1136/bmj.39454.622824.94
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