Commentary: Statistical assessment of cancer cluster evidence-in search of a middle ground

摘要

As Coory and Jordan point out, probabilities linked to cancer cluster reports must take into account the cherry-picking nature of the reported clusters in order to avoid a large number of false-positive results. These authors must be congratulated for bringing this difficult issue to debate and for summarizing several of the challenges facing researchers. In fact, the challenges are so large that the authors conclude that statistical assessments are impossible to interpret and, rather than assisting, they impair decision-making. Their final recommendation is to remove the statistical assessment of chance from protocols for investigating clusters in favour of emphasizing exposure assessment.