CCC 1973.

Methods	Randomized allocation Double blind allocation and asessment Sample size at entry gold:36; placebo:32
Participants	Patients with active RA (definite or classical) Mean age not specified Duration of disease not specified No previous treatment with gold or antimalarials
Interventions	Aurothiomalate ‐ First 3 weeks 10, 15, 25 mg IM weekly, thereafter 50 mg weekly for 17 weeks; dose decreased progressively to 50 mg every 4 weeks until the end of the trial
Outcomes	Outcomes reported at baseline and month 6 Efficacy measures ‐ number of active joints, grip strength, morning stiffness, ESR, 50 foot walk
Notes	Patients included in the analysis: 61% in the gold group 66% in the control group Quality score:5 This RCT only included for toxicity, results on efficacy reported as medians. Statistically significant differences in efficacy were only observed for ESR
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Allocation concealment?	Unclear risk	B ‐ Unclear