“…This de-crease in reliability of results of the simplified scheme has been found by Gold and colleagues who used a 2 dose as opposed to a 4 dose assay for determining the comparative efficacy of polythiazide ( Renese) and meralluride ( Mercuhydrin) in terms of acute weight loss. 12 A further important point emerging from the present study is the fact that valid estimates of the efficacy of a diuretic can be obtained from a remarkably small number of patients and that increasing this number rather than the number of drug sequences narrows the confidence interval of the emerging efficacy estimates. The estimates of absolute efficacy of amiloride similarly show that there was no definite advantage in having increased the number of doses of diuretic from 2 to 4 in the same group of 6 patients.…”