TOPICAL STEROIDS IN TREATMENT OF DERMATITIS

To the Editor:—  In a recent issue of this journal in an exchange of letters Drs. Kalz and Kligman discussed the merits of topical steroids in the treatment of dermatitis.¹ Since this problem is of considerable importance, I should like to add a footnote to Dr. Kalz's remarks.In his letter Dr. Kalz quotes the report by Schamberg, Askovitz, and Greenberg.² These authors claimed that topical steroid therapy was not superior to a control base in a variety of dermatoses under the conditions of testing. These results are at variance with Dr. Kalz's own findings. Although Dr. Kalz quoted the report accurately, the conclusions of the authors are open to question.One of the key sentences in the statistical evaluation of this study is found in a subsequent discussion by Askovitz.³ "It was decided to divide the number of patients in whom no difference was observed into