BMJ  2005;330:674 (19 March), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7492.674

Letter

United Kingdom back pain exercise and manipulation (UK BEAM) trial

What happened to participants who were not included in analysis?

The first 100% of the full text of this article appears below.

EDITOR—The UK BEAM Trial Team has produced a broad piece of research that has attempted to answer many questions about managing chronic back pain all at the same time.¹ However, I find it difficult to understand how any conclusions can be drawn from the published results if 25% of the study population were not included in the analysis (23% at three months and 26% at 12 months).

Knowing what happened to these participants would be helpful because any conclusions drawn from the remaining data without an intention to treat analysis severely weaken what is a brave piece of research.

Blackdown Practice, Hemyock, Devon EX15 3SF rtillett@breathe.com

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Competing interests: None declared.

1. UK BEAM Trial Team. United Kingdom back pain exercise and manipulation (UK BEAM) randomised trial: effectiveness of physical treatments for back pain in primary care. BMJ 2004;329: 1377-81. (11 December.)[Abstract/Free Full Text]

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