POWER CONSIDERATIONS IN EPIDEMIOLOGIC STUDIES OF VINYL CHLORIDE WORKERS

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Abstract
Nine retrospective mortality studies of workers exposed to vinyl chloride were reviewed to determine whether differences in their hypothesis testing results might be due to differences in statistical power. Where possible, the power of each study was calculated for cancer of the lung, brain and liver. When power was taken into consideration, the results for liver and brain cancer were found to be consistent with an etiologic role for vinyl chloride. For lung cancer, the data were not consistent with an etiologic role, in that two studies with very high power yielded negative results.