PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Lucas Gallo
AU  - Cagla Eskicioglu
AU  - Luis H. Braga
AU  - Forough Farrokhyar
AU  - Achilleas Thoma
TI  - Users’ guide to the surgical literature: how to assess an article using surrogate end points
AID  - 10.1503/cjs.002217
DP  - 2017 Aug 01
TA  - Canadian Journal of Surgery
PG  - 280--287
VI  - 60
IP  - 4
4099  - http://canjsurg.ca/content/60/4/280.short
4100  - http://canjsurg.ca/content/60/4/280.full
SO  - CAN J SURG2017 Aug 01; 60
AB  - Phase 3 randomized controlled trials are the widely accepted gold standard through which treatment decisions are made, as they assess the efficacy of a novel treatment against the control on the relevant patient population. The effectiveness of the novel treatment should be derived by measuring patient-important outcomes; however, to accurately assess these outcomes, clinical trials often require extensive patient follow-up and large sample sizes that can incur substantial expense. For this reason, investigators substitute surrogate end points to reduce the sample size and duration of a trial, ultimately reducing cost. The purpose of this article is to help surgeons appraise the surgical literature that use surrogate end points for patient-important outcomes.