Placebo mania

doi:10.1136/bmj.313.7063.1008a

From trainee to consultant, BMJ Group offers doctors around the world tailored information, special events, learning resources and recruitment services at every step along their career path.

... by doctors, for doctors, for patients
We are open for entries!

Online learning

BMJ Learning

High-quality CME / CPD for doctors and other healthcare professionals. BMJ Learning features hundreds of accredited, peer-reviewed learning modules in text, video, and audio formats. Find out more

Courses and Qualifications

BMJ Masterclasses

BMJ Masterclasses, led by experts, help clinicians to use the latest evidence and recent guidelines in practice and meet their CPD/CME requirements. Find out more

Exam Preparation

The leading provider of online exam preparation, helping over 167,000 healthcare professionals to pass their exams. Find out more

onExamination

Search all BMJ comment articles:

From

Limit by

Access to the full text of this article requires a subscription or payment. Please log in or subscribe below.

Placebos are essential when extent and variability of placebo response are unknown

Henry Mcquay, Clinical reader in pain relief,
Andrew Moore, Consultant biochemist

Pain Research and Nuffield Department of Anaesthetics, University of Oxford, Oxford Radcliffe Hospital, Churchill Headington, Oxford OX3 7LJ

EDITOR,—We need placebo controlled trials1 because responses to placebo are remarkably variable. Figure 1 shows the results of randomised double blind trials of anticonvulsants,2 antidepressants,3 and topical capsaicin4 in painful diabetic neuropathy. The proportion of patients in whom the active drug relieved at least 50% of the pain is plotted against the proportion in whom placebo relieved at least 50% of the pain. The active treatments achieved this degree of pain relief in 50–90% of the patients, while placebo did so in …