Praise for the STOP GAP trial

In a recent blog in the BMJ, Richard Lehman has praised the STOP GAP trial. He comments:

"Hurray—here is a British randomised controlled trial published in The BMJ. No matter that most of us have never encountered pyoderma gangrenosum: this is the kind of trial we yearn to see. No pharma funding, using cheap old drugs, answering an important clinical question, designed with patients, pragmatic in that it allowed dose adjustment but valid in that it used blinded assessment. More of these, oh many more please. In fact, this should be done for every situation where there is clinical uncertainty and equipoise. It should be a basic function of the NHS. Ethics committees should ask why it is not being done routinely, rather than putting insuperable obstacles in the way of it being done at all."