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In Reply.—Regarding the age-related prognosis, the senior authors, particularly, do not believe that the "other treatment" average age of 55 years represents "advancing age." Actually, we believe that the average ages quoted of 43 and 55 (the median averages were 46 and 48) do not constitute any real, significant difference in terms of results to be expected from this treatment.
Spontaneous recovery undoubtedly occurred in some of our stellatetreated patients, but it would have occurred equally in our non-stellatetreated group. You cannot explain the marked difference in results in the two groups on the basis of spontaneous recovery. Our clinical experience was that the stellate-blocktreated patients got far better recovery rates than those not so treated, and the point we were trying to make in Fig 3 is that if you use this therapy, you need to do it early for maximum effectiveness.
Dr Snyder suggests that perhaps the "other therapies"