Numbers of CHD patients needed to treat (NNT) with palivizumab for prevention of one hospitalisation according to published efficacy data9
| Age group | RSV hospitalisations | Child-years* | Hospitalisation rate per 100 child-years | Efficacy of palivizumab (risk reduction) | NNT‡ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| *To account for the fact that true RSV exposure exists during approximately six months per year, child-years (see table 2) were divided by a factor of 2 to calculate NNT. | |||||
| †Risk reduction for this age group is not given in the publication by Feltes and co-workers.9 Here we used the average of the risk reduction rates reported for the age groups <6 months (51%) and 6–12 months (16%), respectively. | |||||
| ‡NNT; number needed to treat for prevention of one RSV hospitalisation (95% CI are given in parentheses). | |||||
| <6 mth | 5 | 204 | 2.5 | 51% | 80 (35 to245) |
| <12 mth | 8 | 407 | 2.0 | 33%† | 154 (78 to356) |
| 12–24 mth | 2 | 391 | 0.5 | 58% | 259 (72 to2140) |
| <24 mth | 10 | 798 | 1.3 | 45% | 177 (97 to369) |