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 com putation program (PAMCOMP) for calculating exact person years and standardi zed mortality and incidence ratios running under Window(R) 95/98 and NT. Th e calculation of person-years allows flexible stratification by self-define d and unrestricted categories of age and calendar years. Furthermore, it is possible to lag person-years to account for latency periods. The standardi zed mortality ratio computation includes calculation of 90%, 95%, and 99% c onfidence intervals. Import and export filters for standard personal comput er file formats are available. The software is free of charge and can be do wnloaded from: http://medweb.uni-muenster.de/institute/epi/pamcomp/pamcomp. html.