Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 15, 2026

09:29
Nine-Grid Area Division Method: A New Ideal Bone Puncture Region for Percutaneous Vertebroplasty in Lumbar Spine
Published on: August 9, 2024
Vertebroplasty: when randomized placebo-controlled trial results clash with common belief
Rachelle Buchbinder1, David F Kallmes
1Monash Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Cabrini Hospital, and Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria 3144, Australia. rachelle.buchbinder@med.monash.edu.au
Abstract
Commentary On:
Bono C, Heggeness M, Mick C, et al. North American Spine Society: Newly released vertebroplasty randomized controlled trials: a tale of two trials. Spine J 2010;10:238-240 (in this issue).
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Blinding
Blinding is a commonly used method of not telling participants which treatment a subject is receiving. Blinding is a critical part of a randomized control trial or RCT. It reduces the bias that affects the results. In an RCT, blinding is used in the form of a placebo. A placebo effect occurs when untreated subjects falsely believe they have received the treatment and report improved symptoms. A placebo or a dummy treatment is administered to subjects to negate the bias caused by such an effect.
The Placebo Effect
The placebo effect occurs when people's expectations or beliefs influence or determine their experience in a given situation. In other words, simply expecting something to happen can actually make it happen.
Blind Procedures
Ideally, the people who observe and record the children’s behavior are unaware of who was assigned to the experimental or control group, in order to control for experimenter bias. Experimenter bias refers to the possibility that a researcher’s expectations might skew the results of the study. Remember, conducting an experiment requires a lot of planning, and the people involved in the research project have a vested interest in supporting their hypotheses. If the observers knew which child was...
