Additionally, 46% of patients in the terbutaline group
dropped out of the study. Our experience is to expect
about a 6% dropout rate when traditional programs delivering
this therapy are used. With only 32 patients of
this predominantly (94%) public assistance population
completing the study, these results can hardly be generalAmerican
Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology
LETTERS TO THE EDITORS
ized to other patient populations as Guinn et al suggest.
Finally, the comments of Guinn et al regarding the published
safety data on this therapy neglect the largest published
review (n = 8000 cases) of this therapy,2 which
found an extremely low rate of adverse events and no
maternal deaths related to this treatment.