We review the choice of treatment allocation procedures in a specific small clinical trial of the effect of tympanostomy tubes on language development in patients with otitis media with effusion. The options for balanced allocation available at the planning stage are discussed. A clearly favourable method could not be identified. A simulation study was performed, and its results demonstrated least imbalance with the variance method. In practice this method produced considerable imbalance on relevant prognostic factors.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.