| SHORT COMMUNICATION |
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| Year : 2020 | Volume
: 3
| Issue : 2 | Page : 53-56 |
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The importance of power analysis and effect size in preclinical rodent experimentation
Krishnamurthy Venkataraman
Siddha Central Research Institute, CCRS, Ministry of Ayush, Govt. of India, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Correspondence Address:
Dr. Krishnamurthy Venkataraman
Siddha Central Research Institute, CCRS, Ministry of Ayush, Govt. of India, Chennai 600106, Tamil Nadu
India
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None
DOI: 10.4103/jrsm.jrsm_4_22
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Introduction: The quest for identification of novel compounds to treat disease conditions involves the conduct of proof of concept studies in laboratory animals. The experimental design often does not justify the animal numbers distributed across the various groups in an experiment.
Materials and Methods: The prejudice to use a sample size 6 across all groups is out of sheer misconception that it can effectively inform the success of a treatment intervention. The statisticians however do not recommend the reliance on this misconceived notion and recommend the conduct of the power analysis for every biological experiment.
Results: By employing power analysis, incorporating the effect size the sample size achieved can effectively prevent an experiment suffering from Type II error. The type II errors can frequently occur and can go unnoticed in biological experiments when novel treatments are tested.
Conclusion: It therefore becomes a moral responsibility of an investigator to employ power analysis to estimate the sample size which can also benefit the investigator by alerting the investigator in not choosing more than recommended sample size which can result in saving monetary and manpower resources. |
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