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Dear Stephanie, You are right, tertiary endpoints in clinical trials refer to 'exploratory' and 'other' outcomes. Regards, Ash >________________________________ > From: Stephanie Chan <[log in to unmask]> >To: [log in to unmask] >Sent: Wednesday, 29 February 2012, 17:44 >Subject: Re: Secondary vs. tertiary outcomes? > > >Thanks, Jo. Those definitions make sense, but I don't think they apply to medical trials, or at least not in the one I'm reviewing. For example, in FOCUS: > > >Primary outcome: death or inability to walk at 60 days >Secondary outcome: in-hospital MI, unstable angina or death >Tertiary outcome: in-hospital pneumonias, wound infections, thromboembolisms, strokes, TIAs, MIs > > >The power analysis was based only on the primary outcome. The only difference I can perceive between secondary and tertiary may be the clinical importance of the endpoints (though you could argue that stroke is more important than unstable angina). Tertiary outcomes seem like sort of a wastebasket of "other things that would be interesting to look at." > > >On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 12:32 AM, jo kirkpatrick <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > >It might be different in medicine, but in psychology secondary outcomes are those that occur as a result of the primary outcomes? So tertiary outcomes are those that result from secondary outcomes. These all have equal importance and you can't have one without the others. These terms are commonly used in epidemiology, where the primary outcome is diagnosis: identifying the existence of a disease and its causes; the secondary outcome is establishing an effective treatment and the tertiary outcome is cure and eradication of the disease. What these terms actually mean in medical research and clinical trials depends on the purposes of the research but this link gives examples: >> >> >> >>http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/176_10_200502/geb10185_fm.html >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >>________________________________ >> From: Stephanie Chan <[log in to unmask]> >>To: [log in to unmask] >>Sent: Tuesday, 28 February 2012, 21:36 >>Subject: Secondary vs. tertiary outcomes? >> >> >> >>Hi everybody, >> >> >>Could someone explain to me the difference between secondary and tertiary outcomes in a trial? I know that primary outcomes are the ones that investigators use to do their power analysis, and that secondary ones are other outcomes of interest. But what is a tertiary outcome? One that's deemed less important? I'm preparing a talk on the FOCUS trial (liberal vs. restrictive transfusion for hip fracture surgery), and they list a few prespecified tertiary study outcomes. >> >> >>Thanks for your help. >> >> >>Stephanie >> >> >>-- >>Stephanie Chan, M.D. >>http://www.evidencebasedmommy.com/ >> >> >> >> > > > >-- >Stephanie Chan, M.D. >http://www.evidencebasedmommy.com/ > > > >