What is a clinical trial?

A clinical trial is generally considered to be a health-related research study in human beings that follows a pre-defined plan. The UCSF Memory and Aging Center conducts both observational and interventional types of clinical trials.

• Observational studies are used to follow people who may already be receiving treatment for an illness while measuring their outcomes. These studies rely upon a more natural setting as participants select their treatment. This approach is often used when interventional studies would be unethical or impractical (such as in the case of a rare disease).
• Interventional studies test promising treatments in a controlled environment. In these studies, the investigator assigns participants to particular treatment groups in order to measure and compare their outcomes at the end of the trial.

New treatments cannot be widely used until they have been shown to work safely in patients, and clinical trials are the standard used to judge these treatments safe and effective.

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