Statistical techniques reported in pathology journals during 1983-1985. Implications for pathology educators

The increasingly scientific basis of medicine challenges pathology educators to incorporate quantitative skills into a very compressed curriculum. One strategy is to focus training on the statistical techniques pathologists will most commonly encounter in their literature. We identified the reporting of statistical techniques in nearly 5200 original articles published during 1983-1985 in 16 journals important to pathology. Our results suggest that a reader familiar with 12 fundamental statistical concepts can evaluate knowledgeably over 95% of the quantitative findings reported in these journals. With the exception of survival analysis and pharmacologic modeling, these techniques are typically encountered in many introductory statistical texts. In numerous articles, failure to identify the statistical methodology used made it impossible to identify the analytic procedures used and, hence, judge the scientific validity of results.