RT Journal
A1 Serpa Neto A, Schultz MJ
T1 PRotective ventilation for patients without acute respiratory distress syndrome—reply
JF JAMA
JO JAMA
YR 2013
FD February 20
VO 309
IS 7
SP 654
OP 654
DO 10.1001/jama.2012.197021
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.2012.197021
AB 
Dr Fuller and colleagues question our search strategy and suggest that some eligible studies were not included.1- 2 A number of studies were excluded because they described only odds ratios and not absolute numbers, which we used in the data calculation, and also because they stratified the groups by ARDS vs non-ARDS and not by low vs high tidal volume. In the study by Gajic et al,3 36 patients were not included in the meta-analysis because they were in an intermediate tidal volume group. Regarding the study by Fernandez-Bustamante et al,4 we included the patients with oxygenation criteria for ARDS. We ran another analysis without this study, which did not report radiographic criteria, and found similar results (RR, 0.31 [95% CI, 0.21-0.45]).