Further statistics in dentistry Part 10: Sherlock Holmes, evidence and evidence-based dentistry

Abstract

If one were to go by the explosion of interest in evidence-based clinical practice in the past decade of the second millennium, one could be forgiven for thinking that the idea was new. In fact, a quick search of Medline revealed 9,306 references to 'evidence-based medicine' (EBM) and 291 when the search was restricted to dentistry. It is claimed (Sackett et al., 1996) 1 that the origins of EBM date back to mid nineteenth century Paris or earlier although the name EBM was coined in 1992. The inventor of the randomised controlled clinical trial, Sir Austin Bradford Hill, in the 1950s set out the statistical foundations of EBM.