The Adjustment Methods for Missing Data in Clinical Trials of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Missing data occurs widely in clinical trials of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), which seriously compromises inferences from clinical trials and undermines the precision of the results. There are four different types of adjustment methods for missing data according to the characteristics of TCM clinical trials, which are complete-case analysis, single imputation methods, estimating-equation methods, and methods based on a statistical model. The adjustment methods selected should be clarified in detail, including its rationality and objectivity for efficacy evaluation of TCM clinical trials, and the corresponding statistical analysis method should be also indicated.