Correspondence: Randomized trial of vigabatrin in patients with infantile spasms

To the Editor: The study of Elterman et al.1 is a significant advance in our understanding of the treatment of infantile spasms, particularly in the clear definition of response and relapse in terms of both the clinical and neurophysiological response, in its size, and in the use of actuarial curves (survival curves) for responders. There are, however, some weaknesses in the published data, and in their interpretation and analysis. The results were reported on almost 80% (142/179) of children randomized to receive treatment rather than an intention-to-treat analysis of the 179 children allocated a treatment—as recommended in the CONSORT statement.2 The data show that 16 results are missing from those exposed to high-dose and 9 from the low-dose group; 2 cases were …