Although there is a lot of variability between patients, in most CKD patients eGFR decreases with age. Therefore, in BETonMACE you would expect to have seen a small decrease in mean eGFR in the placebo group. Given that the mean eGFR in the two groups combined did not change, it would seem that mean eGFR probably increased in the ABL group.

If that was the case, the big question then is whether the difference between the two groups was significant in the statistical sense, or could it have been due to chance?

Unfortunately, the numbers were not large and previous studies have shown there can be a lot variability between patients. These could have combined to make this part of BETonMACE underpowered.

Nothing new there!