Key Concepts: Introduction to Clinical Trials

Clinical trials are essential for evaluating ways of preventing, detecting or treating disorders, or
preventing early death. Health professionals conduct their own trials or engage in trials by recruiting
participants, and others are involved in decision‐making for grant funding, drug/medical device
approval or developing clinical guidelines. There... read morealso many trial co‐ordinators and those who analyse
trials (research staff and statisticians). All need to know how new interventions are evaluated for
themselves. The following series of short lectures will introduce clinical trials: why we need them, and
how they are designed, conducted and analysed. These will be introductory talks to give the audience
an overview of the topics rather than details that can be obtained from other sources.