Randimized Control Trial (RCT)

A randomized controlled trial is considered the gold standard in clinical research for evaluating the effectiveness of treatments.

In an RCT, participants are randomly assigned to different groups — typically one receiving the treatment under investigation and another receiving a control (such as placebo, sham or standard care). Randomization reduces bias, ensuring that differences in outcomes are likely due to the treatment itself rather than external factors.
In pain medicine, RCTs are especially important because pain is a subjective experience influenced by biological, psychological and social factors. The use of controls — including placebo or sham procedures — is critical to distinguish true treatment effects from placebo responses. High-quality RCTs provide the strongest evidence for interventions such as pulsed radiofrequency (PRF), medications or neuromodulation techniques.
RCTs also use outcome measures such as the Visual Analog Scale (VAS), Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) or functional scores to track patient progress. Despite being resource-intensive and sometimes difficult to conduct in complex pain populations, RCTs remain the foundation for evidence-based practice in interventional pain management.