NEWS

Medical statistics just got easier with Karger’s new edition of Using and Understanding Medical Statistics

The 5th edition of the highly successful handbook Using and Understanding Medical Statistics by David E. Matthews and Vernon T. Farewell has just been published. It represents the most extensive enhancement since it was first published more than 30 years ago and now includes online supplementary material. Not only does it provide an excellent introduction to medical statistics, but it is also an invaluable reference for every discerning reader of medical research literature.

Medical statistics has never been easier or more understandable as with the new 5th edition of Using and Understanding Medical Statistics, the highly successful handbook by David E. Matthews (Waterloo, Ont.) and Vernon T. Farewell (Cambridge). It represents the most extensive enhancement since the book was first published more than 30 years ago, and now includes online supplementary material. As the authors indicate: "Unquestionably, the major change from the 4th edition has been the inclusion of source code, together with selected output, for the open-source statistical software package known as R. This has allowed us to de-emphasize formulae and calculations, and let software do all the heavy lifting."

This edition also introduces readers to several graphical statistical tools, such as Q-Q plots to check normality, residual plots for multiple regression models, funnel plots to detect publication bias in a meta-analysis and Bland-Altman plots for assessing agreement in clinical measurements. New examples that better serve the expository goals have been added to a half-dozen chapters. In addition, there are new sections describing exact confidence bands for the Kaplan-Meier estimator, as well as negative binomial and zero-inflated Poisson regression models for overdispersed count data.

The end result is not only an excellent introduction to medical statistics, but also an invaluable reference for every discerning reader of medical research literature.

www.karger.com/medical_statistics