Challenges of randomized controlled trial design in plastic surgery

Abstract

Randomized controlled trials are the gold standard of evidence-based medicine. In the field of plastic surgery, designing these studies is much more challenging than in pharmaceutical medicine. Randomized trials in plastic surgery encompass several road blocks including problems shared with other surgical trials: equipoise, high cost, placebo issues and learning curves following the establishment of a novel approach. In addition, plastic surgery has more subjective outcomes, thus making study design even more difficult in assessing the end result.