{"entity":{"id":"blinding","kind":"term","name":"Blinded trial","aka":["blinded","double-blind","double-blinded","double blind","single-blind","open-label","open label","unblinded","unblinding","blinded review","blinded independent review"],"tldr":"Keeping patients (single-blind) or patients and doctors (double-blind) from knowing who is on which treatment, so that hopes and expectations cannot colour the results.","summary":"Blinding protects outcomes that involve judgement: how a patient rates their symptoms, whether a doctor decides a scan shows progression, or when to stop treatment; hard outcomes such as death are less vulnerable. Many cancer trials are open-label because the treatments are too different to disguise (an infusion versus a tablet, distinctive side effects), and they compensate by having scans read by a blinded independent central review (BICR) and by using overall survival, which cannot be biased by knowing the assignment. Unblinding a trial early, for example at an interim analysis, is a formal step overseen by an independent data monitoring committee.","asOf":"2026-09-09","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinded_experiment","links":[{"label":"Wikipedia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinded_experiment"}],"tags":[],"related":["randomised-trial","placebo","bicr","clinical-trial","endpoint","double-blind","stratified-randomisation","clinical-equipoise"],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"category":"Clinic basics"},"route":"/terms/blinding/","neighbours":{"term":[{"id":"bicr","kind":"term","name":"Blinded independent central review (BICR)","route":"/terms/bicr/"},{"id":"double-blind","kind":"term","name":"Blinding (double-blind, open-label, placebo-controlled)","route":"/terms/double-blind/"},{"id":"clinical-equipoise","kind":"term","name":"Clinical equipoise","route":"/terms/clinical-equipoise/"},{"id":"clinical-trial","kind":"term","name":"Clinical trial","route":"/terms/clinical-trial/"},{"id":"endpoint","kind":"term","name":"Endpoint","route":"/terms/endpoint/"},{"id":"placebo","kind":"term","name":"Placebo","route":"/terms/placebo/"},{"id":"randomised-trial","kind":"term","name":"Randomised trial","route":"/terms/randomised-trial/"},{"id":"stratified-randomisation","kind":"term","name":"Stratified randomisation, allocation concealment and minimisation","route":"/terms/stratified-randomisation/"}]}}