Trial design: how must we move ahead?
Rheumatology (Oxford)
; 47 Suppl 5: v57-8, 2008 Oct.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-18784148
ABSTRACT
Scleroderma is clinically heterogeneous and a variety of plausible mechanisms of disease have been hypothesized. Recent years have witnessed a significant improvement in overall survival although all of the gains in management have been therapies for specific organ involvement, e.g. renal crisis and pulmonary arterial hypertension. Future studies will rely on improved clinical science, which involves structured validation of proposed measures of outcome; development of a combined response index; and further refinement of specific subsets of disease expression. Immunoablation with stem cell reconstitution is an example of aggressive therapy chosen as appropriate for a particularly severe disease subset and in whom the pilot data are encouraging. Good science and clinical ethics force continued consideration of equipoise between risk and benefit.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Scleroderma, Systemic
/
Clinical Trials as Topic
Type of study:
Etiology_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Aspects:
Ethics
Limits:
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
Rheumatology (Oxford)
Journal subject:
REUMATOLOGIA
Year:
2008
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country: