Chatellier G, Zapletal E, Lemaitre D, Menard J, Degoulet P
Medical Informatics Department, Broussais Hospital, Paris, France.
BMJ. 1996 Feb 17;312(7028):426-9. doi: 10.1136/bmj.312.7028.426.
The number needed to treat is a meaningful way of expressing the benefit of an active treatment over a control. It can be used either for summarising the results of a therapeutic trial or for medical decision making about an individual patient, but its use at the bedside has been impeded by the need for time consuming calculations. A nomogram has therefore been devised that will greatly simplify the calculations. Since calculations are now easy, the number needed to treat can be used to access the value of several interventions, although it does have its limitations. In particular it should not be used when it is not known whether the relative risk reduction associated with an intervention is constant for all levels of risk, or for periods of time longer than that studied in the original trials.
需治疗人数是一种表达积极治疗相对于对照治疗益处的有意义方式。它可用于总结治疗试验结果或用于针对个体患者的医疗决策，但由于需要耗时计算，其在床边的应用受到了阻碍。因此设计了一种列线图，将极大地简化计算。由于现在计算变得容易，需治疗人数可用于评估多种干预措施的价值，尽管它确实有其局限性。特别是，当不知道与一种干预措施相关的相对风险降低在所有风险水平或比原始试验研究的时间更长的时间段内是否恒定时，不应使用它。
