Response to the letter regarding "Relationship between the severity of coronary artery disease and renal function"

Abstract

Dear Editor,We thank Engin et al 1 for their careful evaluation of ourarticle and their constructive remarks. We are pleased to clar-ify the points they have raised.With respect to the interpretation of the correlation coeffi-cient between estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) andGensini score (ρ = −.352), we agree that, according to com-monly accepted statistical conventions, this magnitude is bestdescribed as a moderate inverse correlation. In our originalwording, the term “strong” was used in a relative sense, aseGFR demonstrated the highest correlation with Gensiniscore among all measured clinical and laboratory variables inour dataset.2 To avoid ambiguity, we agree that revising theterminology to reflect the statistically appropriate classifica-tion is preferable. Importantly, beyond the unadjusted correla-tion, renal function remained the strongest independentdeterminant of coronary atherosclerotic burden in multivari-able regression analyses, supporting the clinical relevance ofthis association.