When to randomize, or 'Evidence-based medicine needs medicine-based evidence'.

摘要

The question of "when to randomize?" is arguably too complicated to answer, if it can even be answered definitively, in the text of a several-thousand-word article. From a broad perspective, randomized studies are relevant to activities and decision making in scientific as well as policy settings, while also encompassing a wide range of intersecting and overlapping topics. Representative situations include how an individual investigator decides that a randomized trial is warranted to study a particular research question; when the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute should commission randomized or non-randomized research; and whether the Food and Drug Administration always needs evidence from randomized trials to approve new drugs.