Inhaled corticosteroids and mortality in COPD.
In response to the letter by Ernst and Suissa1 published in the August edition of Thorax , the issue of incomplete ascertainment of vital status information in five of the seven trials included in the pooled analysis was discussed in the paper.2 This would only make a meaningful impact on the overall results if patients in the inhaled corticosteroid group who withdrew were more likely to die than those patients who withdrew from the placebo arm of the trials. There is no …