Risk-weighted apoB: the evidence on the scales

This commentary refers to ‘Risk-weighted apoB: a novel summary metric outperforming traditional lipid biomarkers in predicting coronary heart disease’, by M. B. Rehman et al., https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehaf1124 and the discussion piece ‘Further methodological considerations in the assessment of risk-weighted apolipoprotein B’, by S. O. Çağlar, https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehag258. We thank Drs Çağlar and Hira for their thoughtful commentary on our study and for highlighting several methodological considerations that merit clarification. Regarding statistical power, we acknowledge that formal power calculations were not presented in our manuscript.1 However, such calculations are primarily relevant for prospective studies in which sample size can be determined in advance, such as randomized trials or newly designed cohort studies. In our analysis, data were derived from four existing cohorts with fixed sample sizes; consequently, the study population was defined by available data rather than prospective recruitment based on a predefined target. Nonetheless, the large combined sample size and number of events across the four cohorts provide substantial statistical power, as reflected by the statistically significant associations observed in our analyses.