Controversy exists regarding the ethics of using placebo control groups in clinical trials when effective treatments exist. The debate was fuelled by the announcement of the fifth revision of the Declaration of Helsinki in 2000. This study reviews the history and scientific background surrounding the controversy and investigates the prevailing attitudes of Hong Kong researchers regarding this i...

Introduction Pragmatic surgical RCTs are needed but it is unclear how to design studies with evolving innovative interventions. The aim of this paper was to describe how a pilot RCT comparing two standard techniques incorporated an additional randomised group with a nested IDEAL (Idea, Development, Evaluation, Assessment and Long-term evaluation of innovative surgery) Phase 2b evaluation of an ...

When global clinical trials are carried out, it is important to consider the influence of racial and ethnic differences on the outcome. From this viewpoint, global clinical trials in East Asia, where racial differences are estimated to be small, are now attracting close attention. Under such circumstances, we conducted a survey using the data registered with ClinicalTrial.gov to investigate the...

This paper presents a review of CEABOT, the unique humanoids competition for university students at Spain wide level. This annual competition started in 2006 and it has been celebrated during the last eight editions. Aimed at initiate graduate and master’s students in humanoid robotics, they have to program the sensor and motor skills of little humanoids built by themselves, or tune up a commer...

In clinical trials, subjects are usually entered one at a time, and their responses to treatment monitored sequentially. Regular monitoring of trial progress in the early stages is crucial for accurate reporting of the final results. This paper discusses in detail the principles of quality data management in clinical trials, with specific reference to three clinical data management systems name...

This critical review examines efficacy of CILT in comparison to traditional treatment methods for adults with aphasia as well as the efficacy of modified versions of the original CILT protocol. Study designs include: individual series pre-post treatment (3), mixed randomized clinical trial (RCT) (2), mixed non-randomized clinical trial (NRCT) (2), mixed randomized block (1) designs. Overall, re...

OBJECTIVE We aimed to provide recommendations for addressing comorbidity in clinical trial design and conduct in multiple sclerosis (MS). METHODS We held an international workshop, informed by a systematic review of the incidence and prevalence of comorbidity in MS and an international survey about research priorities for studying comorbidity including their relation to clinical trials in MS....

At more than 10 years after the paper by Hotopf and colleagues regarding pragmatic trials in psychiatry, the field has evolved and is evolving further. There have been many developments in our understanding of what pragmatism really means, and excellent examples of truly pragmatic trials in psychiatry are currently available. Funders have helped encourage more emphasis on the need for such stud...

OBJECTIVE Acupuncture is often used and frequently advocated for the symptomatic treatment of fibromyalgia. A systematic review has previously demonstrated encouraging findings. As it is now outdated, we wanted to update it. METHODS We searched seven electronic databases for relevant randomized clinical trials (RCTs). The data were extracted and validated independently by both authors. As no ...

OBJECTIVE To determine how well therapeutic randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in the Journal of Pediatric Psychology (JPP) met the CONSORT criteria as compared to pediatric trials in the Journal of Clinical and Consulting Psychology (JCCP), which served as a control. METHODS Nine trials were found in JPP and 19 clinical trials were retrieved from JCCP. The modified Consort Checklist and Flo...