I have received a manuscript for review. I have doubts about the results and
would like comments from the EBH community.
36 cases with a clinical suspicion of perforation of the intestinal
tract were randomised to a specific medical treatment beside conventional
surgical treatment.
My concern is about the striking similarity between the randomised groups which
makes me suspect fraud. Here are some of the characteristics of the two groups:
Treatment 1 Treatment 2
Sex: Male 17 16
Female 1 2
Site of perforation
Gastric 1 2
Duodenal 6 5
Enteric 11 11
Duration of symptoms
< 1 day 15 14
> 1 day 3 4
With low frequencies in some characteristics is it possible that simple
randomisation will result in such a homogenous distributions between the two
groups?
I feel that this is very unlikely. Any comments please.
Roland Andersson
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