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Invited Commentary
April 2, 2020

Are P Values Enough?

Author Affiliations
  • 1Jaeb Center for Health Research, Tampa, Florida
JAMA Ophthalmol. 2020;138(5):567-568. doi:10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2020.0710

In this issue of JAMA Ophthalmology, Hsu and coauthors1 evaluated whether there is a difference in retinal fluid using intravitreous injections with or without adjunctive topical dorzolamide-timolol drops among eyes with persistent fluid from neovascular age-related macular degeneration. The authors concluded that the study findings suggest that dorzolamide-timolol reduces macular edema compared with placebo. This conclusion was likely based on the P value of the primary outcome (P = .04) being less than the prespecified threshold for statistical significance (P < .05). However, what are the implications of drawing conclusions from P values alone?

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