Problems and Countermeasures of Control Group Design in Randomized Controlled Trials of Herbal Medicine

한약제제 무작위 대조군 연구에서 대조군 설계의 문제점과 대안

Objectives : To discuss the types of control groups in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of herbal medicine, and to provide suggestions for improving the design of control group in future clinical trials. Methods : We reviewed the 8 articles about clinical trial design of Chinese herbal preparation which were published from 2005 through 2008. We selected those articles from CNKI(中國知識基礎施設工程(http://www.cnki.net)). Results : It is necessary to have control group in randomized controlled trials(RCTs) of Korean herbal preparation. But there are problems in the selection of appropriate control group drug. This paper lists several problems about the choice of control drug and puts forward some proposals and countermeasures. There are problems such as ethics and manufacturing matching placebo and positive control herbal drug. Conclusion : To improve the quality of control group design, we introduce standard drug plus placebo drug method and add-on research for placebo control group design, double dummy technique, using negative control drug or composite control drug for active control group design.