Clinical Research and Statistics Terms
Clinical trials, study design, evidence, outcomes, probability, and medical statistics. Browse definitions and meanings below.
What is a clinical trial?
A clinical trial is a research study that tests a medical intervention in people to find out whether it is safe and whether it works. Trials run in phases, each answering a different question and involving progressively more participants.
Much of the surrounding vocabulary exists to control bias. Randomization, blinding and control groups all guard against the ways an honest study can still mislead, which is why the terms appear so consistently in published results.
Terms in this topic
Alphabetical order-
In cancer prevention, a clinical trial that studies whether taking certain medicines, vitamins, minerals, or food supplements can prevent cancer.
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Adding participants fixes random error but never bias, so a very large flawed study can be more confidently wrong than a small one.
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A trial designed so that expectation cannot shape the result, by hiding which treatment each person receives.
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In cancer prevention, a clinical trial that studies whether taking certain medicines, vitamins, minerals, or food supplements can prevent cancer.
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Recommendations assembled from the evidence by a panel, written to inform a decision rather than to dictate what happens to any one person.
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A type of research study that tests how well new medical approaches work in people.
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Assignment is the whole point, since deciding who receives what is what allows a study to demonstrate cause rather than mere association.
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A community advisory board links a local community to clinical trial researchers, offering input on trial design, conduct, and how findings are communicated back.
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A way to provide an investigational therapy to a patient who is not eligible to receive that therapy in a clinical trial, but who has a serious or life-threatening illness for which other treatments…
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The best result a scan can show, and a statement about the limits of measurement as much as about the cancer.
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A clinical study that includes all eligible patients identified by the researchers during the study registration period.
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An outside company paid to run parts of a clinical trial, while legal responsibility for the study stays with whoever commissioned it.
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The untreated half of an animal experiment, and the only reason a change in the treated half can be credited to anything.
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In a clinical trial, the group that does not receive the new treatment being studied.
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An experiment or clinical trial that includes a comparison (control) group.
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An impartial group that oversees a clinical trial and reviews the results to see if they are acceptable.
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The percentage of people in a study or treatment group who have not died from a specific disease in a defined period of time.
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A trial design in which neither side knows who received what, so that expectation cannot quietly steer the result.
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Not how long one cell takes to divide, but how long a whole population takes to double, which is usually far longer.
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A log of study drugs kept by an investigator running a clinical trial.