To estimate the average postponement of death in statin trials.
The average postponement of death as represented by the area between the survival curves.
This is the first study ever to systematically evaluate statin trials using average postponement of death as the primary outcome.
If treatment was initiated at ages 60, 70, 80 or 90 years average postponement of hip fracture would be 23, 55, 90, and 74 days respectively.
We identified statin trial reports that provided all-cause survival curves for treated and untreated, and calculated the average postponement of death as represented by the area between the survival curves.
The benefit in terms of average postponement of hip fractures from osteoporosis intervention was estimated at 12 days when an intervention that reduces the risk of hip fracture by 50%, was initiated at the age of 50 and continued for one year [ 13].
As an alternative to the NNT, it has been suggested that the drug benefit may be conveyed by an estimate of the average postponement in the occurrence of the end point for all treated.
8 This model would convey something similar to 'simvastatin resulted in an average of 8 months' postponement of heart attacks for one of four patients'.
4 It has been shown that patients are more responsive to values of postponement than to values of NNT. 7 Technically, the average postponement can be calculated as the area between the survival curves for the treated and the untreated.
