Large pragmatic randomised studies of new antiepileptic drugs are needed

doi:10.1136/bmj.314.7096.1764a

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Anthony Marson, Lecturer in neurologya,
Zakaria Kadir, Honorary senior registrara,
David Chadwick, Professor of neurologya

^a Walton Centre for Neurology and Neurosurgery, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L9 1AE

Editor—Two letters commenting on our systematic review of trials of new antiepileptic drugs1 deserve a response. We agree with A J A Elferink and B J Van Zwieten-Boot that the number needed to treat is a useful statistic, but we believe that they are wrong to suggest that we should have presented it rather than odds ratios.2 We had in fact undertaken a risk difference analysis (1/number needed to treat) and found much greater heterogeneity with …