Exposing Patients With Chronic, Stable, Exertional Angina to Placebo Periods in Drug Trials

Because the safety of withholding standard therapy and enrolling patients with stable angina in placebo-controlled trials is not known, we identified all events leading to dropout from trials of 12 antianginal drugs submitted in support of new drug applications to the US Food and Drug Administration. Persons who dropped out of the trials were classified as cause due to adverse cardiovascular events or other causes without knowledge of drug …