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Geometric mean IELT and premature ejaculation: appropriate statistics to avoid overestimation of treatment efficacy.

Author(s): Waldinger MD, Zwinderman AH, Olivier B, Schweitzer DH

Affiliation(s): Department of Psychiatry and Neurosexology, Haga Hospital Leyenburg, The Hague, The Netherlands. md@waldinger.demon.nl

Publication date & source: 2008-02, J Sex Med., 5(2):492-9. Epub 2007 Dec 27.

INTRODUCTION: The intravaginal ejaculation latency time (IELT) behaves in a skewed manner and needs the appropriate statistics for correct interpretation of treatment results. AIMS: To explain the rightful use of geometrical mean IELT values and the fold increase of the geometric mean IELT because of the positively skewed IELT distribution. METHODS: Linking theoretical arguments to the outcome of several selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor and modern antidepressant study results. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Geometric mean IELT and fold increase of geometrical mean IELT. RESULTS: Log-transforming each separate IELT measurement of each individual man is the basis for the calculation of the geometric mean IELT. A drug-induced positively skewed IELT distribution necessitates the calculation of the geometric mean IELTs at baseline and during drug treatment. In a positively skewed IELT distribution, the use of the "arithmetic" mean IELT risks an overestimation of the drug-induced ejaculation delay as the mean IELT is always higher than the geometric mean IELT. Strong ejaculation-delaying drugs give rise to a strong positively skewed IELT distribution, whereas weak ejaculation-delaying drugs give rise to (much) less skewed IELT distributions. Ejaculation delay is expressed in fold increase of the geometric mean IELT. CONCLUSIONS: Drug-induced ejaculatory performance discloses a positively skewed IELT distribution, requiring the use of the geometric mean IELT and the fold increase of the geometric mean IELT.

Page last updated: 2008-06-22

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