RT Journal
A1 LANGKAMP D
T1 ASsessment of neurodevelopmental outcome in surfactant-replacement therapy
JF American Journal of Diseases of Children
JO American Journal of Diseases of Children
YR 1989
FD July 1
VO 143
IS 7
SP 762
OP 763
DO 10.1001/archpedi.1989.02150190012003
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archpedi.1989.02150190012003
AB Sir.—Surfactant-replacement therapy has achieved a position of great prominence recently in the pediatric literature. The article by Vaucher et al1 in AJDC on the neurodevelopmental outcome of infants treated with human surfactant appears, like the surfactant recipients, to be premature. Two major problems are apparent. First, although the two clinical trials of surfactant replacement were carefully designed, the study population was reduced both by deaths and by those "unavailable for follow-up." Although the authors may have examined differences between those patients who returned for follow-up and those who did not, they did not present such information in their article. With the smaller sample sizes, the possibility of type II error increases and the authors' conclusions of "comparable neurologic and developmental outcome during early childhood in human surfactant-treated and control infants" are not thoroughly supported by their data. Type II error involves not rejecting the null hypothesis when it