Nikki Scott-Despaigne Nov 24, 2018:

Context. I think it would help to indicate at what point in the text this short phrase appears and in what section or what the heading was. As this is all about a point in time, it is describing a relationship between a couple of events or at least between time A and time B. Given that the conception and expression of time can vary from one language to another, then it would be helpful to have more information and background.

Daryo Nov 22, 2018:

"recul inférieur à 2 ans de la reprise chirurgicale.
recul minimum requis était de 2 ans."

that would sound to me like a comment on why some data was excluded.

1 -- "recul inférieur à 2 ans de la reprise chirurgicale" = statement of fact: the opinion / evaluation was given before 2 years passed from this "reprise chirurgicale";
2 -- "recul minimum requis était de 2 ans" = the reason to reject the data: you have to wait at lest two years before declaring a "final" result (as in: it's not "a success" if it goes wrong within 2 years)

But then, without more context it's just guessing.

Johannes Gleim Nov 20, 2018:

@ Valerie Is this the full text?

"recul inférieur à 2 ans de la reprise chirurgicale.
recul minimum requis était de 2 ans."

If I can read correctly, but phrases are inccomplete. Daryo also requested more context, i.e. the full paragraph if possible.

Drmanu49 Nov 20, 2018:

Past tense is used to indicate that is what was used for the study.

Lorraine Dubuc Nov 20, 2018:

'recul' A certain distance in time (evolution) that allows to draw conclusions.

Daryo Nov 20, 2018:

what is then the previous sentence? Normally you wouldn't use "prendre du recul" for a continuous action like an ongoing follow-up, but to say that some time was elapsed or has to elapse before doing some evaluation IOW "recul" implies: "wait some time, don't rush your judgement ..."

Valerie Scaletta (asker) Nov 20, 2018:

That sentence was as is.
For instance again here, the context is:
recul inférieur à 2 ans de la reprise chirurgicale

Johannes Gleim Nov 20, 2018:

@ Valerie Can you please add corresponding context, e.g. the phrase, where "recul minimum requis était de 2 ans." is mentioned, in order to verify the answers?