OBJECTIVE To enable multicriteria benefit-risk (BR) assessment of any number of alternative treatments using all available evidence from a network of clinical trials. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING We design a general method for multicriteria decision aiding with criteria measurements from Mixed Treatment Comparison (MTC) analyses. To evaluate the method, we apply it to BR assessment of four second...

OBJECTIVE To determine the risk: benefit of paracetamol combined with caffeine in the short-term management of acute pain conditions. DESIGN Database searches were conducted to identify double-blind trials comparing paracetamol/caffeine with paracetamol alone (benefit analysis) and any data pertaining to hepatotoxicity of paracetamol when combined with caffeine (risk analysis). INTERVENTION...

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a preventable disease, which combines two general processes: chronic vascular inflammation and acute thrombosis. Both are amplified with positive feedback signals by n-6 eicosanoids derived from food-based n-6 highly unsaturated fatty acids (n-6 HUFA). This amplification is lessened by competing actions of n-3 HUFA. Death results from fatal interactions of the va...

Relative potency plays a key role in understanding the relationship between the doses of two treatments. Defined as the ratio of equally effective doses, it is central to communicating the relationship between a new drug entering the market and older medications. Because doses are tested and collected at discrete points in clinical trials, estimation in direct assays is hampered by the fact tha...

'Department of Biology and Biochemistry, Brunel University, Kingston Lane, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH; 2Istituto di Ginecologia e Ostetricia, Universita di Torino, Turin, Italy; 3Constultant Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Queen's Medical Centre, Clifton Bullevard, Nottingham, NG7 2UH; 4The Health Centre, Torrington Park, London N12 9SS; 'University College and Middlesex School of Medicine, Windey...

Joint evaluation of drugs’ beneficial and adverse effects is required in many situations, in particular to inform decisions on initial or sustained marketing of drugs, or to guide the treatment of individual patients. This synthesis, known as benefit-risk assessment, is without doubt important: timely decisions supported by transparent and sound assessments can reduce mortality and morbidity in...

Parents of preschool children with avulsed primary incisors may request replantation. Although dental textbooks uniformly recommend that primary teeth not be replanted, some case reports advocate the procedure. This review of case reports identifies a number of pathological outcomes of replantation and provides information for clinicians and parents on the risks that may accompany replantation.

Most ethical commentary on clinical research concerns studies involving patient-subjects. Several reasons may account for the relative neglect of ethical appraisal of research with healthy volunteers. Clinical research is often understood ethically within the context of, or in contrast to, the physician-patient relationship characteristic of medical care. In addition, research involving healthy...

Many consumers and clinicians incorrectly believe that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of a new therapeutic implies that its benefits have been proven to exceed its harms. While the FDA could require proof that benefits exceed harms prior to approval, it has been argued that this approach would be infeasible because of prohibitively large sample sizes. One possible alternative w...

read Hits: 20 Abstract read Hits: 11 Abstract read