Methodological thoughts on clinical efficacy evaluation with multiple clinical trials / 中国中药杂志

ABSTRACT

Some clinical trials showed that the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine was not good as the efficacy of western medicine even thoush clinical doctors have been using traditional medicine effectively. Such a result originated from improper application of western medical thoughts in routine clinical efficacy evaluation. To find differences from effective cases with non-effective cases and put the differences into the indication of next clinical trial would conform to the differentiation theory in traditional Chinese medicine. The differences, whether positively or negatively related to the efficacy, could be obtained from all information including symptom evaluation, tongue appearance, pulse feeling and biological parameters with non-linear and other statistical methods. More specific indication finding would be the key task for clinical efficacy evaluation via multiple clinical trials.