What questions should we be asking when presented with the myriad of results from clinical studies? Are they presenting information that is important to patients? For example, in diabetes research, how often are quality of life outcomes and risk of death used as primary outcomes of the research? A report published in the June 4th issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association sought to answer these questions.

• Dr. Mohammad Hassan Murad, MD, MPH, Division of Preventive, Occupational and Aerospace Medicine and the Knowledge and Encounter Research Unit at the College of Medicine, Mayo Clinic and lead author of this report