Virtually every day there's news about one or more clinical trials in progress or being planned. But most people don't fully understand what the different trials mean. ACSH advisor Dr. Katherine Seley-Radtke gives us a primer that clearly explains the entire process. Timely reading.
clinical trials
Dr. Derek Lowe, arguably the finest and most influential chemistry blogger in the universe, has put together an excellent summary of the complex and confusing clinical data of hydroxychloroquine, which he published recently in his blog in Science and Translational Medicine. We thank Derek and AAAS for allowing us to reprint this important article.
When does repeating research studies surpass confirming known findings, for the purposes of validating legitimacy, to entering the world of the redundant and wasteful? When does more become less?
A premature infant is born with a form of severe lung injury that carries a 20% chance of survival. Her physician decides to throw a medical “Hail Mary” and try an untested adult technique to bypass the injured lungs. The infant survives, and after a few more tries, the physician realizes that the survival rate may be as high as 80% with this new treatment. Does he know enough that the treatment should become standard practice, or is a randomized clinical trial required?
Did you know that in an emergency you could be enrolled in a clinical trial without your consent? How is this possible and what can you do about it?
Before conducting any clinical trial – which is a nice way of saying "human medical experiment" – doctors and scientists first have to demonstrate that there's sufficient biomedical evidence to justify doing it. But a new study suggests that more than half of clinical trials don't meet this essential standard.
About 20 percent of cancer clinical trials recruit less than half of the target number of participants. Knowing what factors contribute to this ongoing dilemma in cancer clinical trials could shift resources in the right direction.
A new report finds that few entities administering clinical trials governmental agencies, nonprofits and academic institutions and private companies are reporting data to the government, as is required. The most common reason given for failure to do so on time (or at all) was that it's too much work.
A new study finds that men's and women's hearts age in very different ways. The study may some day lead to new ways to treat heart failure in both sexes. But until that time these findings once again call attention to the fact that research and clinical trials are far too male centric.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) proposed a plan to significantly increase the information reported on clinical trials related to drugs, devices, and other interventions. The proposed plan would apply to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) publicly accessible database, ClinicalTrials.gov.
Bacterial resistance is a devastating problem for healthcare even now, especially in hospitalized patients. If current trends continue, we are all facing a real crisis. In an op-ed by former
Clinton Leaf, author of The Truth in Small Doses: Why We re Losing the War on Cancer