Editorial

One of the striking advantages of guidelines is to incorporate a higher transparency into the information overload and thus to reduce the proportion of ‘opinion-based ’ or even ‘compa-ny-based ’ treatment decisions. In this context the definition of liability when an individual treatment decision does diverge from current guidelines is a critical issue. Implementation of guidelines at an institution is necessarily associated with qual-ity management and monitoring of such procedures by inde-pendent organizations. The interpretation of scientific findings is largely biased by the influence of several factors. The results of many trials are flawed by errors in trials design (e.g. comparison of different dosages, patient cohorts, or definition of surrogate end points). Moreover, the analysis of raw data by the financier of a trial and not by the principal investigator carries the risk of misdi