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©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Methodol. Mar 26, 2016; 6(1): 101-104
Published online Mar 26, 2016. doi: 10.5662/wjm.v6.i1.101
Published online Mar 26, 2016. doi: 10.5662/wjm.v6.i1.101
Study design in evidence-based surgery: What is the role of case-control studies?
Amy M Cao, Michael R Cox, Guy D Eslick, Discipline of Surgery, the University of Sydney, Nepean Hospital, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia
Author contributions: All authors contributed to this manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There are no conflicts of interest arising from this work.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Guy D Eslick, Professor, Discipline of Surgery, the University of Sydney, Nepean Hospital, Level 3, Clinical Building, P.O. Box 63, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia. guy.eslick@sydney.edu.au
Telephone: +61-2-47341373 Fax: +61-2-47343432
Received: August 6, 2015
Peer-review started: August 10, 2015
First decision: November 3, 2015
Revised: December 17, 2015
Accepted: December 29, 2015
Article in press: January 4, 2016
Published online: March 26, 2016
Peer-review started: August 10, 2015
First decision: November 3, 2015
Revised: December 17, 2015
Accepted: December 29, 2015
Article in press: January 4, 2016
Published online: March 26, 2016
Abstract
Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are the gold standard in terms of study design, however, in the surgical setting conducting RCTs can often be unethical or logistically impossible. Case-control studies should become the major study design used in surgical research when RCTs are unable to be conducted and definitely replacing case series which offer little insight into surgical outcomes and disease processes.
Core tip: Case-control studies should be utilized more often in the surgical setting for research purposes. They offer many advantages to other study designs, especially when the option of conducting a randomized clinical trial may be impractical or not ethically feasible.