Skip to Content
Interactive Textbook on Clinical Symptom Research Logo


Home button

Trial Design: Pain Sections
Author Bio
Introduction
Placebo Effects
Single Dose Trials
Repeated Dose Trials
Explanatory Versus Pragmatic
Dose-Response
Currently selected section: Parallel Group Versus Crossover
Conclusion
 

 

Chapter 1: Clinical Trials of Pain Treatment: Parallel Group Versus Crossover Designs

 
           

Would the use of a crossover design be likely to offer advantages over a parallel group design in comparing a two week treatment involving slow titration of a potential morphine potentiator in patients with advanced cancer to a placebo?

You answered:

No.

CORRECT              

Crossover studies have been commonly used in patients with advanced cancer (Houde et al., 1965; Bruera, 1991), but if the total duration of the study exceeds one to two weeks, progression of disease may cause a high dropout rate and may inflate the variance of key outcomes such as pain levels and opioid consumption.

      Back to Question