The importance of randomized controlled trials in pediatric cardiology.

摘要

EXPERIENCE WITH RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED CL1NI-cal trials in pediatric cardiology is limited. Perhaps the most cited article in the field had a sample size of 1, a baby with transposition of the great arteries who successfully underwent balloon dilation of a patent foramen ovale.1 When this procedure was found to improve survival from a median of less than a week to several years, the immediate challenge to clinicians was not to replicate the finding by a randomized trial but to determine how best to manage a living child with an oxygen saturation of 60% to 70% and persistent complex anatomical defects.