The strength of the current results is that the dose dependence of the effectiveness cannot be attributed to baseline differences between the patients.
Our data suggest that previously reported decline in QOL and functional status of ARDS survivors may at least in part be attributed to baseline disability, rather than being a consequence of critical illness and its treatment.
Post hoc analyses, however, showed that both effects were very robust (increase in heart rate for piloerection: p < .001; no increase in heart rate in absence of piloerection p > .50) and thus may not be fully attributed to baseline differences.
As stated by Fisher, 23 these contrasting results can be attributed to different baseline BP in the studies, since different population groups (normotensive and varying degrees of hypertension) respond differently to exercise.
Studies need to be replicated in an independent, similarly powered study, as some inconsistencies were present that could be attributed to the baseline differences in 25(OH D concentrations or blood pressure, or other sources of heterogeneity between the studies.
Nor could the differences be attributed to other baseline or treatment characteristics such as treatment intensity at the end of therapeutic phlebotomy or the degree of posttreatment SF reduction (Table 4).
In any case, low increases can only partly be attributed to high baseline cortisol values, and the prevalence of RAI in the present study is in accordance with findings reported in the literature [ 6, 7, 9, 10, 13, 15, 22, 23].
A lower percentage of eosinophils among low responders in our study could be attributed to somewhat higher baseline cortisol levels.
The difference in response rate between Japanese and non-Japanese patients was attributed to bias of baseline predictive factors of patients (gender, PS and histology) [ 19, 10].
As discussed above, the lower radiation-related risk in the heritable group may be attributed to the higher baseline risk for breast cancer due to a germline RB1 mutation.
The reported difference in overall outcome between anemic and non-anemic patients may be theoretically attributed to the different baseline hemorrhage volumes, and corresponding GCS and NIHSS scores, respectively.
