title: Issues with using baseline in last observation carried forward analysis.
abstract: The topic of this paper was prompted by a study for which one of us was the statistician. It was submitted to Annals of Internal Medicine. The paper had positive reviewer comment; however, the statistical reviewer stated that for the analysis to be acceptable for publication, the missing data had to be accounted for in the analysis through the use of baseline in a last observation carried forward imputation. We discuss the issues associated with this form of imputation and recommend that it should not be undertaken as a primary analysis.
authors.affiliation: Medical Statistics Group, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK. S.A.Julious@Sheffield.ac.uk
authors.forename: Steven A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Julious
authors.forename: Mark A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Mullee
mesh_terms: D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D006801:Humans; D018401:Sample Size