Posted: September 7th, 2016

Compute the relative risk of coronary artery disease in patients receiving the new cholesterol medication as compared to those receiving a placebo.

A randomized trial is conducted to evaluate the efficacy of a new cholesterol-lowering medication. The primary outcome is incident coronary artery disease. Participants are free of coronary artery disease at the start of the study and randomized to receive either the new medication or a placebo. Participants are followed for a maximum of 10 years for the development of coronary artery disease. The observed data are shown in Table 3–11.
• a. Compute the relative risk of coronary artery disease in patients receiving the new cholesterol medication as compared to those receiving a placebo.
• b. Compute the odds ratio of coronary artery disease in patients receiving the new cholesterol medication as compared to those receiving a placebo.
• c. Which measure is more appropriate in this design, the relative risk or odds ratio? Justify briefly.
5.
In the study described in Problem 4, some patients were not followed for a total of 10 years. Some suffered events (i.e., developed coronary artery disease during the course of follow-up), whereas others dropped out of the study. Table 3–12 displays the total number of person-years of follow-up in each group.