The purpose of a study by Luglie et al. (A-5) was to investigate the oral status of a group of patients diagnosed with thalassemia major (TM). One of the outcome measures was the decayed, missing, and filled teeth index (DMFT). In a sample of 18 patients the mean DMFT index value was 10.3 with a standard deviation of 7.3. Is this sufficient evidence to allow us to conclude that the mean DMFT index is greater than 9.0 in a population of similar subjects? Let a ¼ :10.