The confusion around the use of the terms percent versus percentage can be addressed very easily. Percent means, literally, per one hundred. In medical writing, we typically use the symbol % to denote percent. Use percent for specific numbers and use percentage for anything else.
Examples
Percent: In the treatment group, 23 (3.5%) of the 662 patients reported secondary malignancies.
Percentage: The height of each bar in the histogram above represents the percentage of flu cases in the region.
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