Quality control and assurance
Previously, we provided better training to the investigators involved in this study’s blinded and unblinded clinical assessment. We believe that the main source of the difference between blinded and unblinded researchers’ evaluation of post-treatment outcomes is evaluation bias, which is the effect of unblinded personnel’s knowledge of the grouping on the evaluation results. For quality improvement methods, data analysis, and reporting, Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence (SQUIRE 2.0) were referenced [