The natural history of these children remains ill-defined; even so, the trial data suggest that secondary penicillin prophylaxis in them would prevent the progression of RHD.[ 10 ] An NNT of only 13 patients over 2 years appears a very attractive proposition to avert a potentially lethal RHD.[ 10 ] That too, when none of the patients in the control group developed rheumatic fever! The purpose of this communication is to suggest that this conclusion does not reflect the realism but results from the mere statistical treatment of images of borderline significance, or by chance.
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Secondary penicillin prophylaxis for latent rheumatic heart disease: A naïve realism?
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