About clinical trials
The aim of clinical research is to reduce the uncertainties that exist about treatments and interventions that are offered to individual people and to populations, so that better decisions can be made by doctors and patients, and to improve treatment choices. Clinical research can also improve our understanding about causes of human disease and its prevention.
The purpose of clinical trials is to conduct controlled comparisons of treatments or interventions between groups of people who have been randomly allocated to receive either the treatment or intervention being investigated, or the 'control' treatment. The 'control' may either be the known best standard treatment, a placebo, or, (as in some public health trials), no intervention. Data about both benefits and harms experienced by all the participants will be collected and recorded against predetermined endpoints and outcomes. This requires that both quantitative and qualitative data are collected, compared and interpreted.
Not only must new treatments be tested from laboratory through to therapeutic use with patients, but it is also equally important to reduce the uncertainty about the benefits and harms of treatments and interventions already in common use in clinical practice that may not have been adequately tested. Clinical trials are also needed to assess the effects of known treatments and interventions being used for different disease states. Prospectively randomised controlled clinical trials, by reducing known and unknown biases, are the best way to reduce uncertainties about the relative merits and disadvantages of both new and existing treatments and interventions, in order to achieve their main purpose: to provide better treatments for patients.
If you would like further information on clinical trials, the following links may be of interest.
NHS National Electronic Library for Health (NeLH). Specialist Library: Controlled Clinical Trials.
The MRC Clinical Trials Unit website explains the different kinds of trials, why and how they are run, and provides answers to questions that people often ask about taking part.
MRC have produced a leaflet on Clinical Research, which outlines in more detail the important role of clinical trials.
