Randomized clinical trials are often called the “gold standard” of research and have been the centerpiece of evidence-based medicine for nearly a century. In randomized clinical trials, researchers randomly assign patients to treatment or control groups. Researchers then determine if the treatment provides more benefit than the control. Those results then inform clinical guidelines and the care patients receive worldwide. However, not all patients respond the same way in a clinical trial. Some subgroups of patients may benefit more, while others may experience poorer results than the average. Researchers refer to this variation from the average treatment effect as the heterogeneity of treatment effect (HTE).
“There is much more nuance to clinical trial results, but until now, we have not had the technology to systematically unlock this individualized information,” says Rohan Khera, MD, MS, assistant professor of medicine (cardiovascular medicine), assistant professor of biostatistics (health informatics), and director of the Cardiovascular Data Science (CarDS) Lab. “We now have the opportunity to individualize the interpretation of clinical trial results to provide much more personalized information for patients and the people who care for them.”
Read the full article here.
