Current issues in the design and interpretation of clinical trials.
Though there have been considerable improvements in the use of statistical methods for clinical trials in recent years, there remain major practical difficulties in the design and interpretation of many trials. This paper concentrates on problems relating to randomisation, the overemphasis on significance testing, and the inadequate size of many trials. Each topic is illustrated by examples from recent trials.
D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic / Q000379:methods; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000517:prevention & control; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D011897:Random Allocation; D012107:Research Design; D012306:Risk; D013223:Statistics as Topic