Reply to Letter to the Editor

We thank Drs. Lander and Moni-Nwinia for their letter regarding our published manuscript [1]. Their letter focuses on statistical aspects related to the sample size calculation in our study. We commend the authors for their in-depth and detailed analysis of this aspect of our manuscript. We gather that for a teaching exercise the authors conducted a power calculation utilizing a mean length of hospital stay (LoS) of 4.4 days in one group and 5.5 days in the other group (SD 1.29). In this scenario we do agree with the authors; our own calculation also shows that 27 patients in each group would be needed (1 − β=0.80; α = 0.05).