Outpatient use of a double-blind medication trial: a clinical example.
It is often difficult to determine whether a patient's improvement following a trial of a new medication is based on pharmacologic or nonspecific factors. A chronic schizophrenic patient initially had a dramatic improvement in his behavior during an open trial of phenytoin, but a double-blind trial demonstrated that this was not a pharmacologic response. Such double-blind controlled trials can easily be carried out in outpatient settings.
D000328:Adult; D000553:Ambulatory Care; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic / Q000379:methods*; D004311:Double-Blind Method; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010672:Phenytoin / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000188:drug therapy*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology
D010672:Phenytoin