Authors' reply

Nagaraju Umashankar¹ , Belliappa Pemmanda¹ , P Gopkumar² , AJ Hemalatha³ , KS Priya¹ , HV Prashanth⁴

¹ Department of Dermatology, Rajarajeshwari Medical College and Hospitals, Tumkur, Karnataka, India
² Department of Quality Assurance, GRY Institute of Pharmacy, Khargone, Madhya Pradesh, India
³ Department of Preventive Medicine, Oxford Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre Bengaluru, Tumkur, Karnataka, India
⁴ Department of Microbiology, Sri Siddhartha Medical College, Tumkur, Karnataka, India

Correspondence Address:
Nagaraju Umashankar
Department of Dermatology, Rajarajeshwari Medical College and Hospital, Mysore Road, Bengaluru - 560 074, Karnataka
India

Sir,

We appreciate the queries raised by the correspondent on our article “Effectiveness of topical green tea against multidrug resistant Staphylococcus aureus in cases of primary pyoderma: An open controlled trial” published in the March-April (2018) issue of the journal.

Kindly find our replies below on each point.

Study Subjects

Multidrug resistance was an incidental finding and was not included in our inclusion criteria. As multidrug resistant strains were seen in 89.1% participants in the green tea group and 81.1% in the placebo group, we included this in the title.

Sample Size Calculation

The first part of the study was a cross-sectional study to identify the cases among school children; later, the identified cases were administered the intervention. Hence, sample size calculation was done using the same formula.

Randomization

We agree with the comments, but since this was an open label clinical trial, not much emphasis was given on randomization.

Blinding

This was mentioned in the 'limitations' section.

Statistical Methods Used

It is true that means of continuous variables, such as age and duration of lesion, cannot be compared; this was not done in our study. However, for your information, it was only compared for gender (categorical nominal variable) and P value was calculated, which is mentioned below in the table.

Ethical Issues

Informed consent was taken from the parents. Assent forms were also obtained.

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.