Drop-out rates of cancer patients participating in longitudinal RCTs.

摘要

Many Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) are designed to compare rates of change over time in one or more disease markers in several groups . These RCTs differ from 'laboratory-based acid-base-studies' in that they involve human beings, whose feelings and views need to be respected. Therefore, patients participating in RCTs give 'voluntary informed consent' and are allowed to withdraw or drop out of the trial at any time. Cancer patients withdraw from long-term trials because of many reasons and this leads to various consequences such as weakening of the statistical power to detect the effects of treatment protocols. Again, high drop-out rates complicate analysis, interpretation and make generalisability and application of findings difficult .