Anne Drapkin Lyerly, MD, MA and Ruth R. Faden, PhD, MPH
Participation in a research study—in which there are rigorous standards and close monitoring—may be a safer context for the use of medications in pregnancy than the clinical setting, where the evidence base is lacking.
In cost-effectiveness research, the cost of a medical intervention is reported as a dollar amount per quality-adjusted life year gained—the quality of health and the length of time over which the health state exists.
The Moseley study found no significant difference between those in the arthroscopic lavage and debridement arm of the study and those in the sham surgery arm.
This process of developing EBM-based guidelines and applying them to clinical care highlights the tension between generating unbiased knowledge based on statistical aggregation and the application of this information to individual patients.