title: Clinical trials: proposal for an international coding system (ICS).
abstract: The basic design, measurement and analytical components of clinical trials are frequently difficult to extract from published reports. Precedent indicates that this type of information is amenable to codification. An alphabetical international coding system (ICS) is proposed and its advantages discussed and illustrated.
mesh_terms: D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D012107:Research Design; D012219:Rheumatology