Statistical testing and distribution for lead chloride toxicity

• 来源期刊: 亚洲男性学杂志（英文版）
• 年，卷（期）: 2005,（1）
• 页码范围: 107-108
• 页数: 2页
• 语种: 英文

摘要

Dear Sir, Graca et al. [1] provided an interesting investigation on the toxicity of lead chloride and sperm development in mice. However, I would like to make a comment on the statistical analysis presented. Table 1 and its results suggest that a comparison of treated (experiment) and control mice were undertaken using the t-test. The authors indicate that they used the t-test along with complementation of ANOVA analysis. It appears that the t-test was used for analysis in Table 1 and ANOVA, as indicated,for Table 2. Use of t-test for comparing three of more groups is not appropriate since this may result in a multiple comparison problem (increasing the type I error rate)[2, 3]. Multiple comparisons can result in the reporting of a P value that is significant (or of lower value) when in actuality it is not. It is better to use, for example, a one-way ANOVA followed by a post-test (post-hoc)which can take into account all comparisons. Other statistical testing can also be employed to control the overall type I error, such as Tukey-HSD (honest significant difference), Scheffe's and Bonferroni-Dunn methods [2].