Concerns about the completeness and accuracy of reporting of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) and the impact of poor reporting on decision-making have been documented in the medical field over the past several decades. Experience from RCTs in human medicine would suggest that failure to report critical trial features can be associated with biased estimated effect measures, and there is evidenc...

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection occurs commonly in infants aged ≤2 years, and severe infection results in hospitalization with accompanying morbidity and mortality. Palivizumab has been available for prophylaxis for the past 15 years. Prospective data on patients who received palivizumab from 2005 to 2012 has been assembled in the Canadian registry (CARESS) to document utilization, ...

OBJECTIVE Dementia is a major public health issue, with notably high rates in persons with mood illnesses. Lithium has been shown to have considerable neuroprotective effects, even in trace or low doses. The aim of this review is to summarize the current understanding of lithium benefits in trace or low doses in dementia prevention and for other behavioral or medical benefits. METHODS A syste...

BACKGROUND Blinding patients in clinical trials is a key methodological procedure, but the expected degree of bias due to nonblinded patients on estimated treatment effects is unknown. METHODS Systematic review of randomized clinical trials with one sub-study (i.e. experimental vs control) involving blinded patients and another, otherwise identical, sub-study involving nonblinded patients. Wi...

Objective. The aim of this review is to provide the available evidence on the external use of propolis (EUP) for oral, skin, and genital diseases. Method. We searched twelve electronic databases for relevant studies up to June 2016. Randomized clinical trials (RCTs) were included and analysed. Results. Of the 286 articles identified, twelve potentially relevant studies met our inclusion criteri...

There is a general agreement that before a therapy can be accepted into widespread clinical use, demonstration of efficacy in randomized clinical trials (RCTs) is absolutely necessary. There are, however, a growing number of experts who believe that demonstration of RCT efficacy might not be a sufficient basis for widespread acceptance.1 RCTs may not enroll subjects representative of patients i...

As intensive care specialists with a long-time interest in the relative pros and cons of intragastric and small intestinal delivery of enteral nutrition in critically ill patients, we greatly enjoyed reading the excellent metaanalysis performed by Deane and colleagues based on randomized clinical trials (RCTs) [1]. The analysis demonstrated small bowel feeding was associated with a reduced risk...

This prospective, randomized clinical trial (RCT) pilot study was designed to (1) assess the feasibility and tolerability of an easily administered, auricular point acupressure (APA) intervention and (2) provide an initial assessment of effect size as compared to a sham treatment. Thirty-seven subjects were randomized to receive either the real or sham APA treatment. All participants were treat...

Advances in information technology and near ubiquity of the Internet have spawned novel modes of communication and unprecedented insights into human behavior via the digital footprint. Health behavior randomized controlled trials (RCTs), especially technology-based, can leverage these advances to improve the overall clinical trials management process and benefit from improvements at every stage...

Vol.2, No.2, August 2012 Hyperglycaemia is a common, serious and costly health care problem in hospitalized patients. There is substantial observational evidence linking hyperglycaemia in critically ill patients (with and without diabetes) to higher rates of hospital complications, longer hospital stay, higher health care resource utilization, and greater hospital mortality (1,2). Although seve...