Key result
Randomized controlled trials remain the gold standard driving medical science advances over five decades.
Why the study?
The randomized controlled trial sits at the top of the evidence hierarchy in evidence-based medicine, motivating an overview of its design.
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Design
Overview article
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Upholds RCTs as cardiology's top evidence tier; leaves open optimal integration with real-world data sources.
Amajor factor in the rapid advance of medical scienceover the past 50 years has been the development and refinement of the clinical research method known as the randomized controlled trial (RCT). A clinical trial is defined as a prospective scientific experiment that involves human subjects in whom treatment is initiated for the evaluation of a therapeutic intervention. In an RCT, each patient is assigned to receive a specific treatment intervention by a chance mechanism. Nothing more clearly indicates the key role of an RCT in modern clinical research than the placement of this specific research method at the top of the list of levels of evidence in evidence-based medicine.1 According to this classification, significant results of an RCT are more definitive than any other type of clinical research information. The purpose of this article is to present an overview of the
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Kenneth Stanley (2007) reported a review. Randomized controlled trials have driven medical science advances over the past 50 years and sit at the top of evidence hierarchies.
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