Ratio or Mean

From: Tomas Corcoran (mascor@gofree.indigo.ie)
Date: Fri Mar 23 2001 - 17:14:56 EST


I wonder whether anyone is willing to put their neck on the line with this apparently innocuous question.

It relates to the ongoing discussion regarding whether the mean , geometric mean or median should be used.

When measuring neutrophil respiratory burst or phagocytic activity , using Phagoburst from pharmigen , should you use the absolute difference between geometric means ( means , medians ) of the control versus the activated samples , or should you use the ratios. We were mostly using the differences or ratios of the geometric means but there is a fierce debate ongoing in our laboratory regarding this issue and preliminary results from comparative studies show the use of ratios of geometric means coming out on top. 

Please help we're all going daft and would love an inpartial arbitration.

Tomas Corcoran
Dept.of Anaesthetic research 
Cork University Hospital
Cork City
Republic of Ireland 



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