A stand-alone windows application for computing exact person-years, standardized mortality ratios and confidence intervals in epidemiological studies

We introduce a stand alone and user-friendly person-years and mortality computation program (PAMCOMP) for calculating exact person years and standardized mortality and incidence ratios running under Window(R) 95/98 and NT. The calculation of person-years allows flexible stratification by self-defined and unrestricted categories of age and calendar years. Furthermore, it is possible to lag person-years to account for latency periods. The standardized mortality ratio computation includes calculation of 90%, 95%, and 99% confidence intervals. Import and export filters for standard personal computer file formats are available. The software is free of charge and can be downloaded from: http://medweb.uni-muenster.de/institute/epi/pamcomp/pamcomp.html.