Multicenter Prospective Cohort Study and Associated Monitoring
中医药多中心前瞻性队列研究的监查

Cohort study is desirable for evaluating the clinical efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM). However, a cohort study needs a long duration and may easily lose contact with patients, as the result of a large sample size. In this context, a cohort study, a multicenter prospective cohort study in particular, has imposed the challenges on monitoring. This paper discusses cohort studies in the context of clinical TCM studies, and the main issues concerning the quality control and monitoring.