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Steven C. Vlad, MD; Michael P. LaValley, PhD

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Rooks et al¹ report that patients with fibromyalgia syndrome experienced a meaningful improvement in physical function and well-being after undergoing a program of aerobic and flexibility exercise, strength training, and a self-help course (the Arthritis Foundation's Fibromyalgia Self-Help Course). This is a finding with important treatment implications for this difficult-to-treat syndrome.

The authors' conclusions were based on the findings of an analysis of subjects who completed treatment, and they did a laudable job of fully and transparently describing withdrawals. They also indicated that they performed an intention-to-treat analysis; however, the results of this do not appear to have been reported. The intention-to-treat result may be especially important. First, high dropout rates can destroy the similarities between treatment groups that result from randomization and produce overestimates of the effects of an intervention.² Because this trial had a high dropout rate (35%), the results . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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Group Exercise, Education, and Combination Self-management in Women With Fibromyalgia: A Randomized Trial
Daniel S. Rooks, Shiva Gautam, Matthew Romeling, Martha L. Cross, Diana Stratigakis, Brittany Evans, Don L. Goldenberg, Maura D. Iversen, and Jeffrey N. Katz
Arch Intern Med. 2007;167(20):2192-2200.
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