| TE | echo-time; expiratory time; tennis elbow; test ear; tetanus; tetracycline; threshold energy; thrombo... |
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| RCT | radiotherapy and chemotherapy; randomized clinical trial; randomized controlled trial; registered ca... |
| ABC | absolute basophil count; absolute bone conduction; acalculous biliary colic; acid balance control; a... |
| ALE | active life expectancy; allowable limits of error; amputated lower extremity |
| 'Greek letter alpha' | angular acceleration; first [carbon atom next to the carbon atom bearing the active group in organic... |
acute angle
| type i error | The statistical error (said to be of the first kind or alpha error) made in testing an hypothesis when it is concluded that a treatment or intervention is effective when it really is not. Sometimes referred to as a false positive. (12 Dec 1998) |
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| type II error | The statistical error (said to be of the second kind or beta error) made in testing an hypothesis when it is concluded that a treatment or intervention is not effective when it really is. Sometimes referred to as a false negative. (12 Dec 1998) |
| experimental error | The total error of measurement ascribed to the conduct of an empirical observation. It is commonly expressed as the standard deviation of replicated experiments. There may be many components, including those in the sampling procedure, the measurements, injudicious choice of a model, observer bias, etc. (05 Mar 2000) |
| Bernoulli trial | A single random event for which there are two and only two possible outcomes that are mutually exclusive and have a priori fixed (and complementary) probabilities of resulting. The trial is the realization of this process. Conventionally one outcome is termed a success and is assigned the score 1, the other is a failure and has the score zero. Thus the outcome might be 0 (no heads, one tail) or 1 (1 head, no tails). (05 Mar 2000) |
| randomised controlled trial | A clinical trial that involves at least one test treatment and one control treatment, concurrent enrollment and follow-up of the test- and control-treated groups, and in which the treatments to be administered are selected by a random process, such as the use of a random-numbers table. Treatment allocations using coin flips, odd-even numbers, patient social security numbers, days of the week, medical record numbers, or other such pseudo- or quasi-random processes, are not truly randomised and a trial employing any of these techniques for patient assignment is designated simply a controlled clinical trial. (12 Dec 1998) |
| randomised trial | <statistics> A clinical trial in which patients have been randomly assigned to receive either the study drug or alternative treatment, in which neither the patient nor the physician conducting the study know which treatment is being given the patient, and in which the alternative to the study drug is a placebo, the study is conducted at several centres. (09 Oct 1997) |
| phase I clinical trial | <pharmacology> The earliest stage clinical trial for studying an experimental drug in humans. Phase I trials are generally comparatively small and are used to determine toxicity and maximum dose. They provide an initial evaluation of a drug's safety and pharmacokinetics-how the drug is absorbed, what tissues it reaches and how long it takes to leave the body. Such studies also usually test various doses of the drug (dose-ranging) to obtain an indication of the appropriate dose to use in later studies. The patients in these trials usually have advanced disease and have already received best available chemotherapy, therefore, seeing a repose is significant partially because this means there is a lack of cross-resistance between two anti-cancer drugs. (31 Dec 1997) |
| phase II clinical trial | <pharmacology> Usually focus on the activity of the new product as a single agent in a noncomparative, open study. (31 Dec 1997) |
| phase III clinical trial | <pharmacology> An advanced stage clinical trial that should conclusively show how well a drug works as compared to other treatments. Phase III trials are large, frequently multi-institution tests. They generally compare the relative value of the new drug compared with the current standard treatment and measure whether a new drug extends survival or otherwise improves the health of patients on treatment (clinical improvement) rather than just provide surrogate marker data. These studies generally last longer and are larger than phase II trials. (31 Dec 1997) |
| clinical trial | <pharmacology> Research study conducted with patients, usually to evaluate a new treatment or drug. Each trial is designed to answer scientific questions and to find better ways to treat individuals with a specific disease. (12 May 1997) |
| clinical trial, phase I | A pre-planned, usually controlled, clinical study of the safety and efficacy of diagnostic, therapeutic, or prophylactic drugs, devices, or techniques based on a small number of healthy persons and conducted over the period of about a year in either the united states or a foreign country. (12 Dec 1998) |
| clinical trial, phase II | A pre-planned, usually controlled, clinical study of the safety and efficacy of diagnostic, therapeutic, or prophylactic drugs, devices, or techniques based on several hundred volunteers, including a limited number of patients, and conducted over a period of about two years in either the united states or a foreign country. (12 Dec 1998) |
| clinical trial, phase III | A pre-planned, usually controlled, clinical study of the safety and efficacy of diagnostic, therapeutic, or prophylactic drugs, devices, or techniques after phase II trials. A large enough group of patients is studied and closely monitored by physicians for adverse response to long-term exposure, over a period of about three years in either the united states or a foreign country. (12 Dec 1998) |
| clinical trial, phase IV | Planned post-marketing studies of diagnostic, therapeutic, or prophylactic drugs, devices, or techniques that have been approved for general sale after clinical trials, phases I, II, and III. These studies, conducted in the united states or a foreign country, often garner additional data about the safety and efficacy of a product. (12 Dec 1998) |
| controlled clinical trial | A clinical trial involving one or more test treatments, at least one control treatment, specified outcome measures for evaluating the studied intervention, and a bias-free method for assigning patients to the test treatment. The treatment may be drugs, devices, or procedures studied for diagnostic, therapeutic, or prophylactic effectiveness. Control measures include placebos, active medicine, no-treatment, dosage forms and regimens, historical comparisons, etc. When randomization using mathematical techniques, such as the use of a random numbers table, is employed to assign patients to test or control treatments, the trial is characterised as a randomised controlled trial. However, trials employing treatment allocation methods such as coin flips, odd-even numbers, patient social security numbers, days of the week, medical record numbers, or other such pseudo- or quasi-random processes are simply designated as controlled clinical trials. (12 Dec 1998) |