It is possible the reviewer read the ms too hastily. I'd advise
diplomatically explaining (in the letter not the paper) that the study was a
case-control study but not a matched case-control study, and that you have
revised the ms to make the study design clearer. Good luck!
-----Original Message-----
From: Ricardo Ovaldia [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, March 22, 2004 3:57 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: st: more cases than controls
Dear all,
Please pardon the non-Stata topic.
We recently submitted a manuscript for publication to
a major medical journal. It was a case-control study
with 329 cases and 126 controls. One of the reviewers
wrote that "to have such a larger number of cases was
statistically atypical" and asked if the "authors find
that the use of the same control for multiple patients
significantly limits results"?
I never heard of any biases or other problems cause by
having more cases than controls in a study. We had
sufficient power and the difference for our main
outcome was highly significant (less than 0.00001). Am
I missing something or is it that this reviewer does
not understand the case-control designed? By the way
this was not a matched study design.
Thank you,
Ricardo.
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