[Razón de posibilidades: a proposed translation of the term odds ratio].

In English, odds ratio is a basic epidemiological measure approximating the relative risk. Odds ratio has been translated into Spanish in several ways, which has produced great terminological confusion. On the other hand, the English word odds is often used in epidemiology or statistics English textbooks, alone or as part of other expressions, but always keeping a definite mathematical meaning, which calls for a similarly definite term in Spanish. We discuss several translations of odds ratio found in the literature and propose the Spanish word "posibilidades" as a translation of odds and "razón de posibilidades" as a translation of odds ratio.