The effect of rigorous study design in the research of autologous bone marrow-derived mononuclear cell transfer in patients with acute myocardial infarction.

Introduction: Although blinding is a methodologic safeguard to ensure obtaining comparability of groups in a clinical trial, it is very difficult to maintain blinding from the beginning to the end of a study. The aim of the study was to see how proper blinding of both participants and treatment providers from the planning phase of the study to during the study affected the study outcomes.

Methods: We searched Medline, EMBASE, and Cochrane databases from inception to November 2011.