Clinical Trials in Congestive Heart Failure: Why Do Studies Report Conflicting Results?

Excerpt

As subscribers to peer-reviewed medical journals, we commonly read reports about advances in the treatment of acute and chronic diseases. Some reports describe highly favorable results and are enthusiastic about the future role of the new treatment; others discern no therapeutic benefit and raise questions about the usefulness of the new drug. Frequently, such divergent opinions concern the same therapeutic agent. Why should studies using the same drug administered to patients with the same disease differ so markedly in their conclusions about the drug's efficacy?

In their review of controlled clinical trials in chronic heart failure in this issue, Marantz