In a double-blind double-placebo crossover study naproxen (500-750 mg daily) was found to be equivalent to phenylbutazone (400-600 mg daily) in the control of disease activity in 20 patients suffering from ankylosing spondylitis during a two times 5-week trial period. No serious side effects were observed during the trial period. Gastric complaints occurred twice as often under phenylbutazone a...

This protocol describes a pragmatic multicentre randomised controlled trial (RCT) to assess the clinical and cost effectiveness of arthroscopic and open surgery in the management of rotator cuff tears. This trial began in 2007 and was modified in 2010, with the removal of a non-operative arm due to high rates of early crossover to surgery. Cite this article: Bone Joint Res 2014;3:155-60.

Before-After Trial: Investigation of therapeutic alternatives in which individuals of 1 period and under a single treatment are compared with individuals at a subsequent time, treated in a different fashion. If the disorder is not fatal and the "before" treatment is not curative, the same individuals may be studied in the before and after periods, strengthening the design through increased grou...

A lthough studies of oral sucrose solution for procedure related pain in neonates have been subjected to a meta-analysis and a systematic review, several problems have been noted, and only one small trial focused on the role of oral sucrose for preterm venepuncture. We therefore performed a randomised, double blinded, placebo controlled, crossover trial of 25% sucrose solution in healthy preter...

IMPORTANCE There is a major lack of randomized controlled clinical trials evaluating the efficacy of prismatic treatments for hemianopia. Evidence for their effectiveness is mostly based on anecdotal case reports and open-label evaluations without a control condition. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the efficacy of real relative to sham peripheral prism glasses for patients with complete homonymous hem...

BACKGROUND We aimed to evaluate empirically how crossover trial results are analysed in meta-analyses of randomized evidence and whether their results agree with parallel arm studies on the same questions. METHODS We used a systematic sample of Cochrane meta-analyses including crossover trials. We evaluated the methods of analysis for crossover results and compared the concordance of the esti...

background/purpose: although habitual consumption of xylitol reduces cariogenic streptococci levels, its effect on beneficial oral streptococci is less clear. the main aim of the study is to investigate the effect of short-term xylitol consumption on the oral beneficial streptococci level of saliva, streptococcus sanguinis and s. mitis . material and methods: twenty four volunteers with a media...

BACKGROUND Few studies of microbicide acceptability among HIV-infected women have been done. We assessed Carraguard® vaginal gel acceptability among participants in a randomized, controlled, crossover safety trial in HIV-infected women in Thailand. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Participants used each of 3 treatments (Carraguard gel, methylcellulose placebo gel, and no product) for 7 days, we...