Evidence-based dermatology: Correct reporting of the outcome comparisons in clinical trials

According to evidence-based medicine, randomized controlled clinical trials are a group of research designs which provides the highest level of clinical evidence, particularly regarding therapeutic or preventive interventions. Considering the dramatic increase in the number of published clinical trials in medical journals, the readership need to have knowledge about the problems that may occur during design and conduct of these studies, as well as about proper reporting of them. Due to importance of these studies in clinical medicine, several guidelines have been developed regarding designing, conducting and reporting clinical trials. One of the most important guidelines which has been developed to alleviate the problems in reporting randomized clinical trials is Consolidated Standards for Reporting Trials (CONSORT). In this article, some crucial points with regards to the report of the comparison of outcomes of interventions in randomized controlled trials will be reviewed briefly.