***TASK*** the task is to summarize an input biomedical literature in six sentences 
    ***INPUT*** the input is a biomedical literature 
    ***OUTPUT*** the output is the summary of an input biomedical literature in six sentences 
    ***DOCUMENTATION*** 
    ***EXAMPLES*** 
    Input: STUDY OBJECTIVE To determine whether acyclovir administered orally affects the duration and severity of varicella in otherwise normal children . DESIGN R and omized , placebo-controlled , double-blind trial . SETTING Patients ' residence and university hospital clinic . PATIENTS One hundred five children between 5 and 16 years of age with laboratory-confirmed varicella entered the study . Of the 102 who were included in the final analysis , 50 received acyclovir and 52 received placebo . INTERVENTION Placebo or acyclovir was given orally four times daily , for 5 to 7 days . The acyclovir dose was adjusted as follows : 5 to 7 years of age , 20 mg/kg ; 7 to 12 years , 15 mg/kg ; and 12 to 16 years , 10 mg/kg . MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS Acyclovir recipients , compared with the placebo group , defervesced sooner ( median , 1 day vs 2 days ; p = 0.001 ) , experienced onset of cutaneous healing sooner , as reflected by a decrease in number of lesions ( median , 3 days vs 2 days ; p = 0.002 ) , and had fewer skin lesions ( median , 500 vs 336 ; p = 0.02 ) . Acyclovir did not significantly change the rate of complications of varicella ( 10 % in the acyclovir group vs 13.5 % among placebo subjects ) . Adverse drug effects were not observed . Acyclovir recipients had lower geometric mean serum antibody titers to varicella-zoster virus than their placebo counterparts 4 weeks after the onset of illness , but antibody titers in both groups were similar 1 year later . CONCLUSIONS These results provide evidence that acyclovir is useful and well tolerated for treatment of varicella in otherwise healthy children Background . Chickenpox is prevalent in the US despite the availability of an effective vaccine . Acyclovir treatment is limited by concerns about efficacy if given after the first day of rash and by concerns about induction of viral resistance . Objective . Evaluate initiation and duration of acyclovir treatment of chickenpox and its effect on viral resistance . Study design . R and omized , placebo-controlled , double blind trial in immunocompetent patients who were stratified by age at enrollment ( children , 2 to 11 years ; adolescents , ≥12 to 18 years ; adults , ≥19 years ) and duration of rash ( ≤24 h vs. > 24 to 48 h ) . Lesions were staged , counted and cultured ; temperatures and symptoms were recorded daily . Intervention . Subjects presenting within 24 h of rash onset ( Group A ) were r and omly assigned to 5 or 7 days of oral acyclovir treatment , 80 mg/kg/day up to a maximum of 3200 mg/day in four divided doses . Subjects whose rash was > 24 to 48 h old were r and omized to receive 5 days of acyclovir treatment beginning on the first ( Group B1 ) or second study day ( Group B2 ) . Matching placebos were used to ensure that subjects uniformly received 28 doses of study compound . Results . Of the 177 subjects recruited Group A patients who were treated on the first day of rash had the greatest number of significantly shortened event times with 5 days of therapy being equivalent to 7 days . There also were some shorter times to events for Group B1 patients who began therapy on the second day of rash vs. Group B2 patients who started acyclovir on the third . These included : time to maximum lesion formation ( adolescents , P = 0.007 ; children , P = 0.03 ) ; 50 % healing in adolescents ( P = 0.005 ) ; and residual facial lesions in adults ( P = 0.047 ) . The probability of viral shedding was significantly reduced for Group A subjects vs. Group B1 subjects ( P = 0.006 ) . Viruses shed during therapy remained susceptible to acyclovir and retained normal thymidine kinase function . Conclusions . Immunocompetent children , adolescents and adults with chickenpox displayed a gradation in their clinical responses to acyclovir that correlated with the time from onset of rash to initiation of therapy . Five days of therapy is sufficient because a 7-day course provided no additional benefit . The susceptibility to acyclovir of viruses shed during treatment did not change ; however , the effect of therapy on resistance of latent virus was not assessed For physicians , pharmacists , pharmacologists , and others , the medical literature is a key source of information about prescription drugs [ 1 , 2 ] . The medical literature on drugs includes articles from peer- review ed journals , non-peer- review ed ( controlled circulation or throwaway ) journals , and the published proceedings of symposia [ 3 , 4 ] . Symposia are a rapidly growing and potentially major means of disseminating information about drugs . In the clinical journals with the highest circulation rates , the number of symposia published increased from 83 during 1972 - 1977 to 307 during 1984 - 1989 . Approximately half of these symposia were on pharmaceutical topics [ 4 ] . Symposia can be valuable sources of information about drugs , but evidence suggests that they can also be used to market drugs and other interventions , especially if they are industry sponsored . Approximately 70 % of symposia on pharmaceutical topics are sponsored by drug companies [ 3 , 4 ] . Among symposia , sponsorship by a single drug company is associated with promotional characteristics that include a focus on a single drug , misleading titles , use of br and names , and lack of peer review [ 4 ] . Other studies indicate that clinical trials , including those published in symposia , are more likely to favor a new drug therapy if they are funded by the pharmaceutical industry than if they are not [ 5 , 6 ] . Although physicians often report that the peer- review ed literature is one of their main sources of drug information , industry sources of information can sometimes have a stronger influence on prescribing behavior [ 2 ] . Thus , if symposia sponsored by drug companies are a growing source of information about drugs for pharmacists and physicians , assessing the quality of the articles in these symposia is important . We compared the method ologic quality and relevance of drug studies published in symposia sponsored by single drug companies with those of studies that were published in symposia that had other sponsors or in the peer- review ed parent journals . We also assessed whether a methods section was present , because such a section is necessary for evaluating quality . Finally , we tested whether drug industry support of research was associated with study outcome . Methods A symposium is a collection of papers published as a separate issue or as a special section in a regular issue of a medical journal [ 4 ] . We defined original clinical drug articles as articles that 1 ) appeared to present original data from studies done in humans [ that is , articles that had at least one table or figure that was not acknowledged to have been reprinted from another source ] and 2 ) did not specifically state that they were review s [ 4 ] . Selection of Articles We identified original clinical drug articles that had a section describing the study methods , because such a section is needed to assess the quality of an article . Using a computer-generated list of r and om numbers from 1 to 625 , we r and omly selected symposia from 625 symposia that had been identified for a previous study [ 4 ] . We had data on the type of sponsorship of publication for each symposium . From each selected symposium , we r and omly selected one original clinical drug article that had a methods section . We continued selecting symposia until we had enough articles ( n = 127 ) according to the sample size estimates described below . We also calculated the proportion of articles in the selected symposia , overall and by type of sponsorship , that had methods sections . Quality Assessment We compared the quality of original clinical drug articles published in symposia sponsored by single drug companies with that of similar articles published in symposia that had other sponsors and in the peer- review ed parent journals . Sample Size Estimates We estimated the sample size needed to test the association between the independent variable type of sponsorship of publication and the main outcome measure , method ologic quality score . For a three-group comparison , a minimum sample of 108 symposium articles was needed to detect a minimum effect size of 0.10 ( on a scale of 0 to 1 ) , with an value of 0.05 and a value of 0.80 , and st and ard deviation of quality scores of 0.18 based on previous results [ 7 ] . To compare articles from symposia sponsored by single pharmaceutical companies with articles from the peer- review ed parent journals , we estimated that we would need 45 symposia articles and 45 journal articles ; this estimate was the result of sample size calculations done using the variables described above . Because date of publication , journal , and therapeutic class of drug could have confounded the association between source of publication and quality [ 8 - 10 ] , we matched each symposium article to an article from the parent journal by using these characteristics , as described previously [ 7 ] . Our sample of symposium articles contained 50 articles sponsored by single drug companies , but 5 articles published in Transplantation Proceedings were excluded from this analysis because no parent journal is associated with that publication . Instruments We used previously developed instruments to measure the method ologic quality of articles ( defined as the minimization of systematic bias and the consistency of conclusions with results ) and non method ologic indices of quality , such as clinical relevance and generalizability . Both instruments were valid and reliable and have been published elsewhere [ 7 ] . Four review ers independently assessed each article : Two used the method ologic quality instrument , and two used the clinical relevance instrument . We derived  method ologic quality and clinical relevance scores for each article by using a previously described scoring system [ 7 ] . Each score was between 0 ( lowest quality ) and 1 ( highest quality ) and was the average of the scores of the two review ers . Two clinical pharmacologists with extensive research experience in the health sciences did the method ologic quality assessment . For the clinical relevance instrument , three pairs of review ers with clinical experience in general internal medicine and research experience in the health sciences each assessed one third of the articles . Each pair of review ers review ed the articles in the same r and omized order . For both instruments , review ers were trained as described previously [ 7 ] . For the quality assessment s , each review er worked independently , was blinded as to whether an article had been published in a symposium , and was given photocopies of articles from which author names , institution names , journal names , date s , and all other reference information had been obliterated . Review ers were unaware of our hypotheses and the purpose of their review ing , and they were paid for their work . None of the review ers were known to us or knew of our previous work before the study . We assessed the inter-rater reliability of quality scores by using the Kendall coefficient of concordance ( W ) with adjustment for tied ranks [ 11 ] and the intraclass correlation ( R ; treating both review ers and articles as r and om effects [ 12 ] ) . Inter-rater reliability of quality scores was high ( for method ologic quality scores : W equals 0.85 , R equals 0.74 [ 95 % CI , 0.67 to 0.80 ] ; for clinical relevance scores : W equals 0.77 , R equals 0.56 [ CI , 0.44 to 0.65 ] ) . Drug Company Support and Study Outcome For each article , one of us determined whether a drug company had supported the research and whether the article 1 ) reported an outcome favorable to the drug of interest , 2 ) did not report an outcome favorable to the drug of interest , or 3 ) did not test a hypothesis . The drug of interest ( as defined from the perspective of the authors , according to Gotzsche [ 13 ] ) was the newest drug if two or more drugs were studied . We defined research as having had drug company support if the article that reported the research acknowledged either that a drug company had provided funding or drugs or that any of the authors were employed by a drug company . We determined drug company support solely on the basis of information in the paper . If an article did not test a hypothesis , it was excluded from this analysis . We classified the remaining articles as favorable or unfavorable using Gotzsche 's definitions [ 13 ] . An article was favorable if the drug that seemed to be of primary interest to the authors had the same effect as the comparison drug or drugs but with less pronounced side effects , had a better effect without more pronounced side effects , or was preferred more often by patients when the effect and side-effect evaluations were combined . All other articles were considered not favorable . The conclusions of the authors were taken at face value , even if they conflicted with the study results . To test inter-rater reliability , the other author independently assessed a subset of the articles ( n = 90 ) . Agreement in classifying articles as favorable or not favorable was 85 % . Statistical Analyses Because method ologic quality and relevance scores were distributed normally ( Shapiro-Wilk test ) , we analyzed differences between groups ( type of sponsorship of publication ) by using parametric one-way analysis of variance followed by the Tukey test for multiple comparisons or two-way analysis of variance ( total error rate , 0.05 ) . We compared matched groups ( symposium articles and peer- review ed parent journal articles ) by using the paired t-test ( two-tailed equals 0.05 ) . To analyze categorical data on the outcome of studies , we tested for differences in proportions between groups by using the chi-square statistic . For tests of significance , we used an value of 0.05 . All hypothesis tests were two-sided . Results Presence of a Method Section To obtain 127 original clinical drug articles for quality assessment , we had to select 213 symposia containing a total of 5041 articles . The proportions of articles that reported original data but contained no methods sections were 4 % overall ( 195 of 5041 ) , 10 % ( 108 of 1064 ) in the symposia sponsored by single drug companies BACKGROUND Ch 
    Output:
    
There were no clinical ly important differences between acyclovir and placebo with respect to complications or adverse effects .
Conclusion Acyclovir appears to be effective in reducing the number of days with fever among otherwise healthy children with chickenpox .
The results were inconsistent with respect to the number of days to no new lesions , the maximum number of lesions and the relief of itchiness .