Frequencies of patients with different numbers of antibodies. (Top panels) Data from a large adult hospital. (Middle panels) Data from a large pediatric hospital. (Bottom panels) Data from a previously published study.9 The left panels have a linear y-axis scale. The right panels show the same data with a logarithmic y-axis scale. Circles are actual data points. Error bars extend 2 sample SDs. Note that error bars are longer for larger numbers of antibodies first because the number of patients is small and second because the logarithmic scale amplifies length for smaller values. Lines are least-squares fits to a geometric probability distribution: (1 − p)pn. The distribution parameter p is the number of patients with n + 1 antibodies as a fraction of those with n; 95% confidence intervals for p are shown in the legends.
