Key result
Bayesian analyses inform surgical decisions by quantifying the probability of treatment benefit or harm amid uncertainty.
Why the study?
Frequentist statistics are poorly suited to translate clinical study findings into surgical care, highlighting the need for methods like Bayesian analyses to support bedside translation.
Bayesian statistics provide a robust and intuitive framework for incorporating clinical evidence into surgical decision making compared to frequentist approaches.
Bayesian analyses may aid translation of evidence to surgical decisions; leaves open prospective validation in infection management.
Background: Application of clinical study findings to surgical decision making requires accurate interpretation of the results, integration of the findings within the context of pre-existing knowledge and use of statistics to answer clinically relevant questions. Bayesian analyses are optimally suited for interpretation of study findings, supporting translation to the bedside. Discussion: Surgical decision making is a complex process that draws on an individual clinician's medical knowledge, experience, data, and the patient's unique characteristics and preferences. Subjective and objective knowledge may be merged to derive a probability of benefit or harm of a treatment under consideration. Bayesian reasoning complements the clinical decision-making process by incorporating known evidence and data from a new study to determine the probability of an outcome of interest. Bayesian analyses are statistically robust and intuitive when translating findings of a study into clinical care. In contrast, frequentist statistics are poorly suited to translate study findings to clinical application. This review aims to highlight the benefits of incorporating Bayesian analyses into clinical research. Conclusion: Bayesian analyses offer clinically relevant information including the probability of benefit or harm of a treatment under consideration while accounting for uncertainty. This information may be incorporated easily and accurately into surgical decision making.
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Hatton et al. (2021) reported a review. Bayesian analyses vs. Frequentist statistics was evaluated. Bayesian analyses offer clinically relevant information for surgical decision making by determining the probability of benefit or harm of a treatment while accounting for uncertainty.
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