Letter to the editor about the reviewer comment to our article entitled 'Procalcitonin and the inflammatory response to salt in essential hypertension: A randomized cross-over clinical trial'

摘要

We appreciate the comment by the reviewer (reported at the end of the article) who was involved in the revision of our study 'Procalci-tonin and the inflammatory response to salt in essential hypertension: a randomized cross-over clinical trial . However, the final sentence of this comment is incorrect. The reviewer says that 'the study has an observational character'. Furthermore, in closing the comment, the reviewer alludes to the possibility that the sample size of our study is low. We would like to bring to the attention of the readership of the Journal that modification of sodium intake is an intervention. Our study was registered in ClinicalTrials. gov (ID: NCT01665534) as a crossover, randomized, clinical trial, and in the Methods, the interventional nature of our study was clearly described. Although we agree that in absolute terms, the number of patients enrolled was small, the study indeed was sufficiently powered to detect the observed variations in inflammatory biomarkers (see Study Power paragraph).