Assessing the clinical importance of statistically significant improvementin anti-dementia drug trials

A strategy for assessing the clinical importance of statistically significa nt treatment benefits in recent dementia drug trials is proposed. Tradition al criteria for the assessment of valid inferences are helpful: the more li kely the treatment effects are valid, the greater the chance that they will be clinically important. The role of the Clinician's Interview-Based Impre ssion of Change is also of some importance. Progress in this area faces the special challenge that the 'new' disease entity of partial treatment of Al zheimer's disease has not been well described. Large, systematic clinical s tudies of treated patients remain necessary to define reliable guides to su ccessful treatment. Copyright (C) 2001 S. Karger AG, Basel.