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Paul D. Fuchs, MD
Delta Health Center Mound Bayou, Miss

JAMA. 1986;255(14):1876.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

Keeler et al¹ in their article state that "differences of 1.9 mm Hg in diastolic blood pressure... are important—they translate into differences of 5% to 8% in the probability of dying in the next year." As a clinician, I am very skeptical that a reduction in diastolic blood pressure of approximately 0.5 mm Hg per year (1.9 mm Hg achieved over a three- to five-year period) in the free group is clinically significant. Could this be another case of confusing statistical significance with clinical significance?

If indeed the reduction in diastolic blood pressure was clinically significant, it seems that a difference in the number of deaths in the hypertensive subgroup of 856 patients should have been noted over the three- to five-year period of follow-up. Was such a difference noted? (It has already been reported that the total numbers of deaths in the free vs cost-sharing . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Footnotes
Edited by Drummond Rennie, MD, Senior Contributing Editor; Sharon Iverson, Assistant Editor.

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