Why community physicians should encourage their patients to participate in randomized clinical trials.

CDP, AMIS, PARIS, MRFIT, USPET, HDFP, LRC, NEHDP, BHAT,* and more has taken place. The critical need for participation of both the physician and the patient in these trials make it timely to review the benefits to the patient, to the referring physician, and to society as a whole. Randomized controlled clinical trials are often the only means of evaluating the relative efficacy of methods of medical and/or surgical treatment (this relates both to "established" forms of therapy and to new modalities of management), and for evaluating ways of preventing cardiovascular disease. Ethical considerations require that, before the institution of a clinical trial, neither of the alternative forms of management being tested is obviously superior to the other, and that neither is associated with undue side effects or risks; thus, the concept of randomization is most appropriate and must be explained by physicians to their patients. All patient volunteers enrolled in clinical trials have detailed medical supervision, in addition to that provided by their primary physicians. The comprehensive clinical and laboratory examinations (as well as those done at follow-up visits) may reveal unsuspected