A systematic review of the literature on postherpetic neuralgia was performed. The authors identified studies using the National Library of Medicine's Medline database and Cochrane Library database. The authors determined absolute reduction rate, number needed to treat (NNT), 95% CI for NNT, and number needed to harm (NNH) for successful therapies of postherpetic neuralgia. Tricyclic antidepres...

The medical community increasingly supports the use of simplifying constructs or ratios to facilitate incorporation of evidence-based medicine into clinical practice such as number needed to treat (NNT) and polarity index (PI). Clinicians and teachers find them to be an appealing, easy-to remember integer that can be readily translated into clinical practice. However, serious questions have bee...

OBJECTIVE To elucidate the benefits of using probiotics in the prevention of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) and its complications in preterm newborns. METHOD This was a systematic review of randomized controlled trials, which included studies retrieved from three databases (MEDLINE, Embase, and LILACS), using a combination of the terms (necrotizing enterocolitis) AND (probiotics). RESULTS ...

OBJECTIVE To verify the efficacy of dexamethasone in the prophylaxis of nausea and vomiting in patients submitted to laparoscopic cholecystectomy. METHODS This was a systematic review of the literature through the MEDLINE, Embase, and LILACS databases. Only controlled and randomized clinical trials comparing dexamethasone to placebo in the prophylaxis of nausea and vomiting in patients submit...

There is a lack of consensus regarding which type of antiplatelet agent should be used in patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD) and little is known on the advantages and disadvantages of dual antiplatelet therapy. We conducted a systematic review and network meta-analysis of available randomized controlled trials (RCT) comparing different antiplatelet drugs (Aspirin, Ticlopidine, Clop...

BACKGROUND Cancer is a common disease and radiotherapy is one well-established treatment for some solid tumours. Hyperbaric oxygenation therapy (HBOT) may improve the ability of radiotherapy to kill hypoxic cancer cells, so the administration of radiotherapy while breathing hyperbaric oxygen may result in a reduction in mortality and recurrence. OBJECTIVES To assess the benefits and harms of ...

Purpose: Weather information plays a crucial role in the human society. It helps to lower weather related losses and enhance societal benefits such as protection of life, health, property, etc., is very much essential for proper classification images (WIs) into several categories dew, fogsmog, frost, glaze, hail, lightning, rain, rainbow, rime, sandstorm, snow, etc. so that appropriate can be p...

Abstract In Europe, some non-native tree species (NNT) are classified as invasive because they have spread into semi-natural habitats. Yet, available risk assessment protocols often based on a few limited case studies with unknown representativeness and uncertain data quality. This is particularly problematic when negative impacts of NNT confined to particular ecosystems or processes, whilst pr...

BACKGROUND Number needed to treat (NNT) is a useful measure of a treatment's clinical benefit or harm. However, NNT estimates for treatments for neurologic conditions have previously been generated only for dichotomized functional outcomes, which may underestimate clinically relevant treatment effects. OBJECTIVES To develop a method for estimating NNTs for nonbinary outcomes from parallel des...

Background and Purpose—The SAINT I trial demonstrated that the neuroprotective agent NXY-059 improves the distribution of acute stroke patient outcomes on the modified Rankin Scale (mRS) of global disability. Standard dichotomized number-needed-to-treat (NNT) analyses for the magnitude of treatment benefit range widely, from 22.7 to infinity, and each capture only a portion of the observed bene...