The BODE index as a tool to predict survival in COPD lung transplant candidates.

SIGNIFICANT This has been with us for decades. It is sometimes accompanied by statistical probability values in parentheses. It literally means ‘‘full of meaning or import’’ [1]. Used alone it means the authors are stressing, but not justifying, the scientific importance of their results. Even if significant, the results are often unimportant, uninteresting and unconvincing. Unfortunately the word will be with us for many more decades.