Am J Epidemiol. 2021 Feb 1;190(2):318-321. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwaa167.
Case-control studies are an important part of the epidemiologic literature, yet confusion remains about how to interpret estimates from different case-control study designs. We demonstrate that not all case-control study designs estimate odds ratios. On the contrary, case-control studies in the literature often report odds ratios as their main parameter even when using designs that do not estimate odds ratios. Only studies using specific case-control designs should report odds ratios, whereas the case-cohort and incidence-density sampled case-control studies must report risk ratio and incidence rate ratios, respectively. This also applies to case-control studies conducted in open cohorts, which often estimate incidence rate ratios. We also demonstrate the misinterpretation of case-control study estimates in a small sample of highly cited case-control studies in general epidemiologic and medical journals. We therefore suggest that greater care be taken when considering which parameter is to be reported from a case-control study.
病例对照研究是流行病学文献的重要组成部分，但对于如何解释不同病例对照研究设计的估计值仍存在混淆。我们证明并非所有病例对照研究设计都估计优势比。相反，文献中的病例对照研究经常报告优势比作为其主要参数，即使使用的设计不估计优势比也是如此。只有使用特定病例对照设计的研究才应报告优势比，而病例-队列和发病率密度抽样病例对照研究则必须分别报告风险比和发病率比。这也适用于在开放式队列中进行的病例对照研究，这些研究通常估计发病率比。我们还在一般流行病学和医学期刊中高度引用的少数病例对照研究中，展示了对病例对照研究估计值的误解。因此，我们建议在考虑要从病例对照研究报告哪个参数时要更加小心。
