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Hurtful or helpful?

When you’re thinking about applying the results of a clinical trial, its’ often difficult to get a meaningful handle on the balance that should be made between the beneficial and adverse effects of a...

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It’s how mixed up? Meta analysis models step one.

Well, I have to start with an apology. In one of these columns, I foolishly claimed that the difference between a Peto OR fixed effect meta-analysis and a DerSimonian-Laird random effects meta-analysis...

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Confident in predicting? Meta analysis models step two.

So, in a previous post I made a foray into the dangerous world of statistical models of meta-analysis. Now, I’ll try hard to explain why we need to start doubting random effects meta-analysis more than...

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Secrets and lies. Truth and beauty.

… and other Bohemian aphorisms … There is a quite brilliant paper from the under-advertised PLoS One which shows how, in the are of incubation periods for respiratory disease, Truth By Citation is...

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Slice, DICE and eventually something will happen

Did you know that aspirin following MI doesn’t work for those with Gemini and Libra star signs? No, it’s true*. The ISIS-2 trial, which demonstrated the mortality benefits for anti-platelet agents...

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Short-cuts to effectiveness information

A while ago Archimedes reviewed the benefits of using ‘pre-appraised’ search resources, short-cuts to the best methodological quality evidence to answer clinical questions. The favoured database of...

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Tarnished gold

What can you do when a ‘gold standard’ isn’t actually that good at diagnosing a condition? It can be terribly problematic in interpreting sensitivity and specificity – for example comparing polymerase...

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Cracking the mould

  While Archimedes does, not infrequently, get all concerned about invasive fungal infections, this post is not of the issue of beta-D-glucan testing, or problems of azole interactions. Instead, its a...

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Proof of equipoise

In order to test a new treatment, in a standard randomised controlled trial, we are ethically assumed to have ‘equipoise': an honest uncertainty at the same chance of a patient being allocated to the...

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Get it straight from the start

 Over more than a decade Archimedes has presented clinical queries and the appraisal of the evidence that emerges. leading on to a clinical conclusion to the dilemma. What is strikingly common is that...

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Basics: Blame it on me

In my clinical role, it’s fairly easy to take the blame for most bad things that happen to my patients. I give them cytotoxic chemotherapy (for good reason, honest) and it’s a group of substances that...

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Cases and controls

I’ve noticed that there are a fair few phrases in the world where there actual meaning can be unclear or uncertain, or possibly interpreted differently by folk. Take “maybe later” when used by parent...

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Can our children’s trials work better than they do?

We’re all well aware of the problems of doing randomised clinical trials in paediatrics – small numbers, uncertainty about sample size estimates, lack of funding to undertake the studies – but are we...

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Secrets and lies. Truth and beauty.

… and other Bohemian aphorisms … There is a quite brilliant paper from the under-advertised PLoS One which shows how, in the are of incubation periods for respiratory disease, Truth By Citation is...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Slice, DICE and eventually something will happen

Did you know that aspirin following MI doesn’t work for those with Gemini and Libra star signs? No, it’s true*. The ISIS-2 trial, which demonstrated the mortality benefits for anti-platelet agents...

View Article


Short-cuts to effectiveness information

A while ago Archimedes reviewed the benefits of using ‘pre-appraised’ search resources, short-cuts to the best methodological quality evidence to answer clinical questions. The favoured database of...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Tarnished gold

What can you do when a ‘gold standard’ isn’t actually that good at diagnosing a condition? It can be terribly problematic in interpreting sensitivity and specificity – for example comparing polymerase...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Cracking the mould

  While Archimedes does, not infrequently, get all concerned about invasive fungal infections, this post is not of the issue of beta-D-glucan testing, or problems of azole interactions. Instead, its a...

View Article

Proof of equipoise

In order to test a new treatment, in a standard randomised controlled trial, we are ethically assumed to have ‘equipoise’: an honest uncertainty at the same chance of a patient being allocated to the...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Get it straight from the start

 Over more than a decade Archimedes has presented clinical queries and the appraisal of the evidence that emerges. leading on to a clinical conclusion to the dilemma. What is strikingly common is that...

View Article
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