RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIALS

Randomized Controlled Trials

Discordance between Conclusions in the Abstract and Conclusions Stated in the Body of the Article: An Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) of Lung Cancer

Introduction

A clinical trial is a controlled experiment in human volunteers are used to evaluate the safety and efficacy of treatments or interventions against diseases and health problems of any kind, and to determine pharmacological, pharmacokinetic or pharmacodynamic novel therapeutics, including study of adverse reactions. This is a clinical trial is an experiment with patients as subjects of study, in which when testing a new drug is compared at least two treatment regimens one of which is known as a control. There are two types of controls, the liabilities (negative) and assets (positive). A negative control using placebo in a trial of therapeutic agents, which means the inclusion of a safe product, the preparation itself is similar in presentation, size, color, texture and taste of the active preparation. In some cases you want to show that the preparation is equivalent or superior to existing standard product, and to protect patients who need prescription medication must be used an active control1.

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are considered the paradigm of epidemiological research designs because they are the closest to an experiment by controlling the conditions under study and because they can establish cause-effect if the following strategies are set efficiently: a) allocation of the maneuver intervention by randomization mechanisms in subjects with similar characteristics that help ensure the comparability of populations, b) the use of a control group allows unbiased comparison of two possible effects of treatments, new usual or placebo; c) blinding of treatment groups to minimize the possible information bias and allows the comparability of information, d) finally, the incorporation of the strategies described above allow for comparability in the analysis

The word 'Randomized Control Trial' has its origins in clinical research. While, suggestions for the use of controls and other forms of Randomization developed as early as the 18th century, the theoretical and methodological foundation implemented in the earlier part of the 20th century. Furthermore, the wider adoption of RCTs for clinical studies by governments and the private sector did not begin until the 1950s. Clinical experiments have their origins in the experimental designs used for agricultural experiments in the 1920s by R. Fisher. It has been more than several years since the preference of Randomized Control Trial (RCT) methods and its use for assessing the impact of development intervention studies. Most of the time, researchers use this method as a requirement2. Those who are in favor of using RCTs suggest that this method sets a methodological benchmark or 'gold standard' which ensures rigor and scientific validity.

These randomized control trials are actually comparative studies which incorporate two types of groups, an intervention and a control group. The task of a subject pertaining to a group is identified with the help of formal randomization procedures. Furthermore, randomization involves a process, in the simplest case, with the help of which, every participant has an equal ...