How Well Are Randomized Controlled Trials Reported in the Dermatology Literature?

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Abstract
WELL-DESIGNED clinical trials yield strong evidence for the effects of health care interventions. The randomized controlled trial (RCT) is the criterion standard for clinical trials and offers the most robust and rigorous way of determining the causal relationship between treatment and effect and for assessing the cost-effectiveness of a treatment.1-7 Random assignment greatly reduces the potential for bias in the allocation of interventions. It ensures that comparison groups are as similar as possible to each other in terms of both known and unknown possible predictors of treatment response,6 and RCTs have been consistently shown to give more reliable evidence of therapeutic effectiveness than nonrandomized studies.3 Even so, there are some limitations and skepticism regarding the use and value of randomized trials.7-10