What Is a Clinical Trial?

Clinical trials are a type of research study that uses human volunteers to see if certain medications or treatments are safe and effective. This type of research is an important tool researchers use to find ways to improve health and offer new treatment options for a wide variety of health conditions.

While there are many ways in which clinical trial studies are designed, most are either interventional studies, in which a controlled environment is used to see if experimental treatments are safe and effective; or observational, in which natural settings are used to see how therapies or treatments affect large groups of people.

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