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Transcript
If someone asked you to name the greatest medical invention of the 20th Century, what would you say?
The polio vaccine?
Penicillin?
Maybe the first cancer drugs?
How about clinical trials?
Believe it or not, the clinical trial is the medical invention that has led to almost all the life medicines we know today.
Clinical research has led to drugs that have made organ transplants possible, made diabetes a manageable condition, added nearly 20 years to the life expectancy of AIDS patients and prolonged the lives of millions of cancer patients. In fact, the clinical trial is the fundamental tool of modern medicine.
If someone asked you to name the greatest medical invention of the 20th Century, what would you say?
You can see how far we have come when you look at medicine before the clinical trial. 3500 years ago, in Egypt, a doctor would prescribe verdigris, onions, blue vitriol and powdered wood for an eye infection. Maybe it worked, but how would you know?
In the 1700's, a much more advanced method of trying remedies and comparing results was saving lives.
In 1754, surgeon James Lind carefully tested different foods aboard the HMS Salisbury. He discovered that citrus fruit prevented scurvy and subsequently helped save lives.
In 1796, Edward Jenner conducted the famous trial that proved inoculation could prevent smallpox.
Jenner's trial was the first step towards mass vaccinations that conquered epidemics from typhoid and yellow fever to polio and measles.
One more advance was needed to create the modern clinical trial: statistics and randomization, to design experiments precisely and eliminate bias.
In 1946, British epidemiologist Sir Austin Bradford Hill put patients into experimental and control groups at random. This eliminated any bias. Only the test medicine would account for differences seen in the health of the two groups. Hill's landmark trial found the clearest possible proof that streptomycin is an effective treatment for tuberculosis.
Today, the clinical trial is the cornerstone of the drug development process. The FDA has approved 1019 novel drug therapies, virtually all the medicines used today. This includes nearly all cancer drugs, beta blockers, ace inhibitors and statins for heart disease; all antidepressants and antipsychotics and all treatments for AIDS, Alzheimer's and asthma - all brought to you by the clinical trial.
