Clinical Trials Clinical trials are set up for various reasons including . These trials help scientists and
doctors provide more
research for a certain product or
treatment. This also helps them ensure whether or not the invention, medicine, treatment, or medical device is safe and non-hazardous for people to use. This also allows
doctors and scientists to determine which product/invention is the most efficient way to help people in need. There are different forms of
clinical trials that are performed to test certain things. Some of these include,
treatment (new combinations, new drugs, and new approaches to therapy), prevention (looks for a better way to prevent disease and stop the occurrence of the disease before it is developed by others), diagnostic (finding better tests and procedures to diagnose conditions), and screening (
research on the best way to detect a disease). Objectives for the different trials are usually recorded in a clinical trial protocol. Each clinical trial differs in some way or another, but most of them go through the same phases for each of the experiments. These phases are critically observed and the information obtainted allows the doctors to determine whether or not to go forward with the trial. Phase I is the first step in the process. Results obtained in this phase include how the body reacts to the certain type of
medication or treatment, determining possible side effects to medications or treatment, and seeing how high the doses can go without negative effects on the patient. Through clinical trials, volunteers helping with this experiment could benefit others who need the types of medical treatments and medicines being tested. However, most patients who undergo these trials do not directly benefit. Phase II trials are often used when the doctor or scientist wants to make sure that there are no reoccurring side effects that they do not know about. There are also more people involved in this trial (usually up to 50 people) and the whole trial itself is longer than the first to determine their results. Those conducting the research are also able to determine different doses that would be applicable to different patients. Most of that information is gained from the phase II trial. Phase III trials are used if the treatment or medication is completely brand new. This trial also compares the dose rates from the observations in phase II. This trial, however, is more complex than the other two because success rates for the trials may be very limited at this point. Phase III uses more people than trial II because more candidates need to be tested in order to ensure proper results. After the clinical trials, the drug/treatment is licensed as an approved method and further monitored. For the most part, pharmaceutical companies run the last phase of this process because it wants to ensure that they are knowledgeable of the long term effects of the medicine, and how well it performs when it is not used in clinical trials.
