Correction: Lung Transplantation and Survival in Children with Cystic Fibrosis

N Engl J Med 2008; 359:536July 31, 2008

Article

To the Editor:

In our article on lung transplantation and survival in children with cystic fibrosis (Nov. 22 issue),1 the recording of censoring dates, but not deaths, for 27 of the 514 patients in the final data set that we analyzed was in error. The data were inadvertently corrupted during sensitivity analyses conducted to explore the effects of different methods for censoring survival (see the Methods section of our article and the Supplementary Appendix of the article, available with the full text of this letter at www.nejm.org). The error was discovered when we repeated the entire analysis in response to published criticisms of our statistical methods2,3 and the observation that the post-transplantation survival that we reported was at odds with the survival in other reports based on data obtained from similar patients.4 A cross-check of the data set used in our article against the original raw data obtained from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network showed that 27 censoring dates had been corrupted. This error led to a misreporting of median survival after transplantation.

We repeated the survival analysis using corrected censoring dates. The specific corrections are available with a revised version of our article at www.nejm.org, along with the full text of the original article. Neither the underlying errors in the data nor any of the corrections we report alter our original conclusion: that prolongation of life by means of lung transplantation should not be expected in children with cystic fibrosis.

Theodore G. Liou, M.D.
Frederick R. Adler, Ph.D.
Barbara C. Cahill, M.D.
University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84132
ted.liou@utah.edu

David R. Cox, Ph.D.
Nuffield College, Oxford OX1 1NF, United Kingdom

4 References

1
Liou TG, Adler FR, Cox DR, Cahill BC. Lung transplantation and survival in children with cystic fibrosis. N Engl J Med 2007;357:2143-2152
Full Text | Web of Science | Medline

2
Corris PA, Christie JD. Update in transplantation 2007. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2008;177:1062-1067
CrossRef | Web of Science | Medline

3
Lung transplantation and survival in children with cystic fibrosis. N Engl J Med 2008;358:1733-1735

4
Aurora P, Spencer H, Moreno-Galdo A. Lung transplantation in children with cystic fibrosis: a view from Europe. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2008;177:935-936
CrossRef | Web of Science | Medline

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