Intention-to-treat analysis

In medicine an intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis of the results of a randomized controlled trial is based on the initial treatment assignment and not on the treatment eventually received. ITT analysis is intended to avoid various misleading artifacts that can arise in intervention research such as non-random attrition of participants from the study or crossover. ITT is also simpler than other forms of study design and analysis, because it does not require observation of compliance status for units assigned to different treatments or incorporation of compliance into the analysis. Although ITT analysis is widely employed in published clinical trials, it can be incorrectly described and there are some issues with its application.[1] Furthermore, there is no consensus on how to carry out an ITT analysis in the presence of missing outcome data.[2]

  1. ^ Hollis, Sally; Campbell, Fiona (September 1999). "What is meant by intention to treat analysis? Survey of published randomised controlled trials". BMJ. 319 (7211): 670–674. doi:10.1136/bmj.319.7211.670. PMC 28218. PMID 10480822.
  2. ^ Alshurafa, Mohamad; Briel, Matthias; Akl, Elie A.; Haines, Ted; Moayyedi, Paul; Gentles, Stephen J.; Rios, Lorena; Tran, Chau; Bhatnagar, Neera; Lamontagne, Francois; Walter, Stephen D.; Guyatt, Gordon H. (2012). "Inconsistent Definitions for Intention-To-Treat in Relation to Missing Outcome Data: Systematic Review of the Methods Literature". PLOS ONE. 7 (11): e49163. Bibcode:2012PLoSO...749163A. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0049163. PMC 3499557. PMID 23166608.