Pleasing some of the people none of the time

EDITOR—The editorial by Maddern et al was in large part a critical appraisal of our randomised trial of tension free vaginal tape. 1 2 We endorse the view expressed by the authors that realistic funding for surgical trials is crucial to their meaningful outcome, and that contingency funding should be available so that trials are not underpowered. We accept that our failure to recruit up to the calculated sample size in this trial has an inevitable adverse effect on the power of its conclusions. We emphasised this in our publication and in a subsequent commentary. 2 3

It must be recognised, however, …