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CMAJ • June 10, 2003; 168 (12)
© 2003 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors

Letters
Correspondance

Relative risks or odds ratios?

Cristian Baicus

Specialist in Internal Medicine, Clinical Epidemiology Unit, Colentina University Hospital, Bucharest, Romania

I was surprised that in an article concerning risks of waiting for cardiac catheterization, written by specialists in clinical epidemiology,1 the same results are reported as relative risks (in the abstract and the Results section of the paper) and as odds ratios (in Table 5). Given that these data were generated by multivariate analysis, I suppose that the values are odds ratios, as stated in Table 5. However, with regard to the results of the univariate analysis, which are presented only in Table 5, I'm uncertain what the numbers represent. They might be odds ratios, as stated; however, because the report describes a cohort study, relative risks should have been given.2

Cristian Baicus Specialist in Internal Medicine Clinical Epidemiology Unit Colentina University Hospital Bucharest, Romania

References

  1. Natarajan MK, Mehta SR, Holder DH, Goodhart DR, Gafni A, Shilton D, et al. The risks of waiting for cardiac catheterization: a prospective study. CMAJ 2002;167(11):1233-40.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
  2. Sackett DL, Deeks JJ, Altman DG. Down with odds ratios. Evid Based Med 1996;1:164-5.




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