What is a Clinical Trial?

A clinical trial is a special type of clinical research used to determine if new drugs or other types of treatment or interventions are both safe and effective.

All clinical trials are conducted with the help of research volunteers, also referred to as human subjects, or research participants.

Some studies involve healthy volunteers — generally seeking information to use in comparison to individuals with a specific condition. Other studies compare standard treatments for a disease to newly-developed therapies. Sometimes these studies evaluate the safety and effectiveness of a new treatment for a condition for which no current treatment exists.

Read about volunteering for a research study

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