Intention to treat

What It Is

Applies to randomized trials.  Every effort is made to include data from all randomized patients in the statistical analysis, according to the group to which they were originally randomized.

Why It’s Important

Randomization assigns patients to groups based on chance, increasing the likelihood that the people across study groups are equivalent with respect to important characteristics which may affect the results.  Not following intention-to-treat may cause imbalances in study groups.