Randomization and blinding
This is a pragmatic clinical trial conducted in the routine clinical setup. Biopsy-confirmed AIN cases of unknown aetiology were reviewed at the nephrology clinic in Kandy with their biopsy reports and explained about the clinical trial to the participants, by one of the two medical officers who were responsible for randomization and allocation of treatments. Those patients who consented for the trial were randomly allocated for treatments. The pharmacist and these two medical officers were not blinded for allocations. These staff members were not involved either in outcome evaluation or data analysis. They maintained separate trial data entry records of patients under their custody for review and re-evaluation of treatment compliance.At the same time, trial participants and outcome adjudicators of the study had no access to trial records, thereby neither the patients nor the researchers knew who was getting which type of treatment. Furthermore, this was an individually randomized trial in which participants were randomly allocated over time and individually followed up amongst other routine clinic patients, limiting access to compare treatments. However, allocated medications were not concealed according to a double dummy technique.