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What Should Be the Ideal Control Group in Clinical Trials Investigating the Role of Varicocele and Its Treatment on Fertility Outcomes?

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Varicocele and Male Infertility

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Abstract

Varicocele is a condition capable of affecting the male fertility potential. The decision of treatment depends on how the disease is harming the individual, but the real effectiveness of an intervention can only be evaluated by studies named clinical trials. A clinical trial evaluates the intervention effectiveness over a specific condition and for that requires a comparative group called control group. There are three different approaches on varicocele treatment studies, and all of them require a control group. When studying the treatment effects over treated and untreated groups, the control group is the one which has not received the treatment. When comparing two different therapies, the control group is the one receiving the gold standard treatment. Studies analyzing the same treatment offered in different points of time consider control group the one which receive treatment on the commonly well-established point in time. Therefore, control group should be the one that best fits for the purpose of a certain study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Surgery, Division of Urology, Sao Paulo Federal University, Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil

    Renata Cristina de Carvalho & Renato Fraietta

Authors
  1. Renata Cristina de Carvalho
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  2. Renato Fraietta
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. ANDROFERT, Andrology & Human Reproduction Clinic, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil

    Sandro C Esteves

  2. S.H. Ho Urology Centre, Department of Surgery, Prince of Wales Hospital, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

    Chak-Lam Cho

  3. Department of Urology, Hamad Medical Corporation, Weill Cornell Medicine Qatar, Doha, Qatar

    Ahmad Majzoub

  4. Department of Urology, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA

    Ashok Agarwal

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de Carvalho, R.C., Fraietta, R. (2019). What Should Be the Ideal Control Group in Clinical Trials Investigating the Role of Varicocele and Its Treatment on Fertility Outcomes?. In: Esteves, S., Cho, CL., Majzoub, A., Agarwal, A. (eds) Varicocele and Male Infertility. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-79102-9_39

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-79102-9_39

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-79101-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-79102-9

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