Significant digits or not significant digits ... [General Statistics]
... thats the question (Hamlet).
Dear HS,
thanks for lighten me a candle .
Most of your reasoning meets my feeling about this topic.
But some minor comments and questions for clarifying:
This is very resonable regarding your reasoning that follows in your post.
But I have seen almost always constant decimal places (mostly 2-3) in the result from analysts.
May be this is because they all use M$-EXCEL .
Have you convinced your analysts in using significant digits?
Or is the discrepancy to the analytical report not an issue?
Thats a pity, but "The customer is king".
Am I right in assuming that you use the rounded values for further processing (PK analysis)?
Or only for reporting the values in the study report?
What about 3 significant digits if LLOQ is given by the analyst with 2 decimals but only 2 significant digits (f.i. 0.88 nano/whatever)?
AUC (roughly spoken summed conc. multiplied by time ...) gains precision in comparision to Cmax? I had expected the contrary.
Again the question: Rounded values for further processing (statistical analysis of bioequivalence) ?
Dear HS,
thanks for lighten me a candle .
Most of your reasoning meets my feeling about this topic.
But some minor comments and questions for clarifying:
❝ However, I would always opt for significant digits - not decimal places.
This is very resonable regarding your reasoning that follows in your post.
But I have seen almost always constant decimal places (mostly 2-3) in the result from analysts.
May be this is because they all use M$-EXCEL .
Have you convinced your analysts in using significant digits?
Or is the discrepancy to the analytical report not an issue?
❝ For many analytical methods even rounding to two significant digits would be sufficient – but I would guess everybody would start screaming then ...
Thats a pity, but "The customer is king".
❝ I do rounding of analytical data to three significant figures ...
Am I right in assuming that you use the rounded values for further processing (PK analysis)?
Or only for reporting the values in the study report?
What about 3 significant digits if LLOQ is given by the analyst with 2 decimals but only 2 significant digits (f.i. 0.88 nano/whatever)?
❝ Cmax… three significant figures; AUC as an integrated parameter to four significant figures…
AUC (roughly spoken summed conc. multiplied by time ...) gains precision in comparision to Cmax? I had expected the contrary.
Again the question: Rounded values for further processing (statistical analysis of bioequivalence) ?
—
Regards,
Detlew
Regards,
Detlew
Complete thread:
- Significant digits or decimal places d_labes 2008-03-26 13:15
- Significant digits (IMHO) Helmut 2008-03-26 16:12
- Significant digits or not significant digits ...d_labes 2008-03-27 10:10
- Significant digits or not significant digits ... Helmut 2008-03-27 20:43
- Significant digits or not significant digits ... d_labes 2008-03-28 11:00
- Significant digits or not significant digits ... Helmut 2008-03-27 20:43
- Significant digits or not significant digits ...d_labes 2008-03-27 10:10
- Significant digits (IMHO) Helmut 2008-03-26 16:12