What is a Trial?
| What is a Trial? A clinical trial is a particular type of clinical research that compares one treatment with another. It may involve patients or healthy people, or both. Small studies produce less reliable results than large ones, so studies often have to be carried out on a large number of people before the results are considered sufficiently reliable. | ||||
| Why are clinical trials important? Doctors and other healthcare professionals and patients need evidence from clinical trials to know which treatments work best. Without this evidence, there is a risk that people could be given treatments that have no advantage, waste NHS resources, and might even be harmful. Clinical trials help to find out if:
Many NHS treatments have been tested in clinical trials. The NHS aims to inform patients about research relevant to them and offer more patients the opportunity to take part in clinical trials, if they want to. | ||||
| What can clinical trials find out? Clinical trials can help:
Trials follow a set of rules, known as a protocol, to ensure they are well designed and as safe as possible, that they measure the right things in the right way, and that results are meaningful. A full protocol should be available to anyone who is considering taking part in a trial and wants to see it. Many clinical trials are designed to show whether new medicines work as expected. These results are sent to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). The MHRA then decides whether to allow the company making the medicine to market it for a particular use. | ||||
| Further Information If you require any information which isn't on the website please contact the Liverpool ECMC Team via e-mail. |
