Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

Education And Debate

Forest plots: trying to see the wood and the trees

BMJ 2001; 322 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.322.7300.1479 (Published 16 June 2001) Cite this as: BMJ 2001;322:1479

Rapid Response:

Re: Logrank?

The word 'logrank' in the headings of Figure 2 is a mistake caused by
us not changing the default settings of the plotting programme. I
apologise for any confusion.

The percentage of deaths for the Wilcox group should be 6.3, rather
than 8.9. There are a couple of errors like this, which were pointed out
at the proofs stage, but unfortunately they have not been corrected. If
anybody wants the corrected totals, then I can supply them.

However, as the paper is about where forest plots came from, rather
than about beta-blockers and mortality, these small errors should not
detract from the overall message.

Competing interests: No competing interests

12 October 2001
Steff Lewis
Medical statistician
Edinburgh University