text: In any clinical trial, the number of subjects, also called the sample size, has a large impact on the ability to reliably detect and measure the effects of the intervention. This ability is described as its "power", which must be calculated before initiating a study to figure out if the study is worth its costs. In general, a larger sample size increases the statistical power, also the cost.
  The statistical power estimates the ability of a trial to detect a difference of a particular size (or larger) between the treatment and control groups. For example, a trial of a lipid-lowering drug versus placebo with 100 patients in each group might have a power of 0.90 to detect a difference between placebo and trial groups receiving dosage of 10 mg/dL or more, but only 0.70 to detect a difference of 6 mg/dL.