Ask your doctor what is the NNT for the drug your are taking or look it up your self some drugs are great and some are almost useless.
Look up these guys http://www.thennt.com/
The NNT is the average number of patients who need to be treated to prevent one additional bad outcome (e.g. the number of patients that need to be treated for one to benefit compared with a control in a clinical trial). It is defined as the inverse of the absolute risk reduction.
Definition –
The Number Needed to Treat (NNT) is the number of patients you need to treat to prevent one additional bad outcome (death, stroke, etc.). For example, if a drug has an NNT of 5, it means you have to treat 5 people with the drug to prevent one additional bad outcome. More detailed discussion of the nature of the NNT measure can be found in the EBM Note on summarising the effects of therapy in the journal Evidence-Based Medicine 1997;2:103-4.
Some examples of NNT
In Summary, for those who aspirin daily for a year:
Benefits in NNT
- 1 in 1667 were helped (cardiovascular problem prevented)
- None were helped (prevented death)
- 1 in 2000 were helped (prevented non-fatal heart attack)
- 1 in 3000 were helped (prevented non-fatal stroke)
Coronary Stenting for Non-Acute Coronary Disease Compared to Medical Therapy
Benefits in NNT
- None were helped (life saved, heart attack prevented, symptoms reduced)
Rapid Defibrillation for Cardiac Arrest
Efficacy Endpoints: Mortality
Harm Endpoints: Mortality
Narrative: Hundreds of thousands of individuals suffer sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) each year in the United States and abroad. Rapid defibrillation has been thought highly effective for SCA, but data have been sparse. This review examined the utility of rapid defibrillation under the best of possible circumstances: in a public location, with otherwise relatively healthy patients who suffer witnessed, sudden cardiac arrest, and in whom defibrillation is typically available within 3-4 minutes.
Under these unusual circumstances 90 of 148 (61%) arrests were associated with an initial cardiac rhythm of ventricular fibrillation when the defibrillator was placed on the patient. Survival to hospital discharge was 38% overall and 59% among those patients found to be in ventricular fibrillation.
Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery (Heart Bypass) for Preventing Death over Ten Years
- 1 in 25 were helped (prevented death)
- 1 in 10-14 were helped (prevented non-fatal heart attack)