From the authors:
We would like to thank S. Suissa for his letter, which appeared in a recent issue of the European Respiratory Journal 1. We share his interest in the methodology of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) trials. The issues he raised are important and deserve a more comprehensive response than is possible here. We would, however, like to address the two major points regarding the design of the TRISTAN (Trial of Inhaled Steroids and Long-acting β2-agonists) and ISOLDE (Inhaled Steroids in …
