Forschende Komplementärmedizin und klassische Naturheilkunde = Research in complementary and natural classical medicine
-
Forsch Komplementarmed Klass Naturheilkd · Jun 2004
[Problems of randomized studies in complementary medicine demonstrated in a study on mistletoe treatment of patients with breast cancer].
Prospective randomized studies on mistletoe therapy repeatedly demonstrated that there is a basic problem in the matter of enrolling the appropriate number of patients within a reasonable amount of time. Most studies have to face this problem. However, recent experience suggests that this problem is more pronounced in the case of mistletoe treatment of cancer patients. ⋯ This confirms our suspicion that the difficulties of enrollment and randomization in the case of mistletoe studies exceed those of studies conducted in conventional oncology. The reasons for this dramatic effect and the possibility of alternative study designs are discussed.