Outcomes and measurements of randomized controlled trial for traditional Chinese medicine in treatment of endometriosis / 中国中药杂志

This study aims to analyze the outcomes and measurements of randomized controlled trial(RCT) for traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) treatment of endometriosis(EM) and provide a basis for the building of the core outcome set(COS) of EM. The RCT for TCM treatment of EM was retrieved from medical literature databases with the time interval from inception to February 3, 2022. The Cochrane risk of bias assessment tool was employed to evaluate the risk of bias of the included RCT, and descriptive analyses of the extracted information were carried out. A total of 519 RCTs were included, with the sample sizes ranging from 28-582 patients and 239 outcome indicators(8 outcome indicators per RCT on average). According to the functional properties, the reported outcome indicators were classified into 7 indicators: clinical efficacy assessment, indicators of clinical symptoms and signs, TCM symptom efficacy indicators, physical and chemical examinations, quality of life, long-term prognosis, and safety events. All the 519 RCTs had problems, such as the lack of differentiation between primary and secondary outcome indicators(1.73% RCTs reported such differen-tiation), poor quality, confused criteria for composite outcome indicators and arbitrary combination of indicators(45 criteria for the single outcome indicator of efficiency), and messy measurements(as many as 18 measurements for TCM symptom score). In addition, as a chronic disease, EM requires long-term management. The outcome indicators vary for the patients in different disease stages, such as EM pain, EM infertility, and post-operative EM, while the specific outcome indicator sets for different EM populations remain to be developed. In addition, the time point of measurement for EM long-term outcomes remains unclear, and the definition of TCM syndromes lacks standards. The RCT for TCM treatment had a variety of problems, such as the lack of differentiation of outcome indicators, confusion in criteria and measurements, lack of specific outcome indicator sets for different EM populations, and unclear time points for long-term outcomes. Therefore, the studies about COS need to be carried out urgently.

Evaluating the effect of flipped classroom combined with TBL by DOPS in clinical practice teaching for interns in ophthalmology / 国际眼科杂志(Guoji Yanke Zazhi)

AIM: To explore the effect of flipped classroom combined with team-based learning(TBL)in ophthalmology practice teaching by applying directly observed procedural skills(DOPS). METHODS: A total of 54 students of clinical medicine “5+3” integration and clinical medicine for five years, interned at the department of ophthalmology from June 15th to November 14th, 2021 were divided into traditional teaching group(group A)and flipped classroom combined with TBL group(group B). The teaching effects of slit lamp microscopy and direct ophthalmoscopy in group A and group B were compared by DOPS score, and Mann-Whitney U test was used for statistical analysis.RESULTS: Total DOPS score for slit-lamp microscopy in group A was 59(58.00, 60.00)points,which was significantly lower than that of group B 63(61.00,65.00)points(P<0.001). The DOPS score for direct ophthalmoscopy in group A was 63(61.00, 63.75)points, which was significantly lower than that of group B, 66(63.75,66.25)points(P<0.001). In the two operations and especially in the aspects of “understanding of complications,relevant anatomical structure and proficiency in operation”“preparatory work” and “technical ability of operation”, the scores of group B was significantly higher than those of group A(P<0.05).CONCLUSION: Flipped classroom combined with TBL has significant advantages in clinical practice teaching for interns in ophthalmology, which is worthy of promotion and application compared with traditional teaching.