Abstract
We extend our thanks to Drs McIlroy and Nishanian for their careful reading of our article. Their concerns would be well placed if the average baseline international normalized ratio (INR) in the hetastarch group were 1.47. Their comment led us to review the project source data. That review revealed several transcription errors in which the decimal place in the INR was misplaced. The average baseline INR after correction of those transcription errors is 1.06 (standard deviation = 0.11). This correction thus reverses the direction of the difference between the hetastarch and albumin groups in the average INR from that presented in the initial article. The statistical significance of the difference in average INR between the albumin and hetastarch groups becomes even weaker, remaining not statistically significant (Student t = 0.77; P = .44, not significant). We then investigated how many cases in each group had a baseline INR above the 1.30 threshold, as Drs McIlroy and Nishanian suggested. That threshold is crossed by 2 members (2.6%) of the albumin group and 3 members (3.8%) of the hetastarch group. The difference in the proportion in each group with an INR above the 1.3 threshold is not statistically significant (Fisher exact test = 1.0, not significant). This corrected finding supports treating the intervention and control groups in this study as equivalent. We apologize for any misunderstandings caused by this inaccuracy in the initial reported statistics summarizing and comparing baseline characteristics. The fundamental importance of baseline comparisons in a clinical trialThe Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular SurgeryVol. 139Issue 3PreviewTo the Editor: Full-Text PDF Notice of CorrectionThe Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular SurgeryVol. 139Issue 3PreviewRe: Hecht-Dolnik M, Barkan H, Taharka A, Loftus J. Hetastarch increases the risk of bleeding complications in patients after off-pump coronary bypass surgery: a randomized clinical trial. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2009;138:703-11. Full-Text PDF
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