Outcome postponement as a potential patient centred measure of therapeutic benefit: examples in cardiovascular medicine

Background: The impact of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) depends heavily on the presentation of the findings.Objective: Classically, RCT findings are presented in the form of absolute risk reduction (ARR), number needed to treat (NNT) to prevent one adverse outcome, and relative risk reduction (RRR) or hazard ratio (the most favourable means for drug marketing). However, the estimation of average survival gain (i.e. outcome postponement...