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Dr Frassoni's paper was shown to Dr Sue Richards, who has commented as follows

Bone Marrow Transplantation volume 25, pages 472–473 (2000)Cite this article

Dr Frassoni highlights a problem common to all areas of medicine, that of applying the results of randomised trials to the individual patient.

The particular question here is whether a patient with AML who is in remission, in good condition, and who meets the criteria for a transplant, should have a transplant or not. It is true that the outcome among similar patients who have received a transplant is relevant to this question. However, this is a selected group of patients and we do not know what their outcome would be with chemotherapy alone.123 Ideally, the randomised trials would address this question by randomising such patients between transplant and chemotherapy on the day when the transplant might be done. This is impractical.

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  1. Clinical Trials Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit, Harkness Building, Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, OX2 6HE, UK

    S Richards

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Richards, S. Dr Frassoni's paper was shown to Dr Sue Richards, who has commented as follows. Bone Marrow Transplant 25, 472–473 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bmt.1702200

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