clinical trial

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

clinical trial - a rigorously controlled test of a new drug or a new invasive medical device on human subjects; in the United States it is conducted under the direction of the FDA before being made available for general clinical use clinical test trial, run, test - the act of testing something; "in the experimental trials the amount of carbon was measured separately"; "he called each flip of the coin a new trial" phase I, phase I clinical trial - a clinical trial on a few persons to determine the safety of a new drug or invasive medical device; for drugs, dosage or toxicity limits should be obtained phase II, phase II clinical trial - a clinical trial on more persons than in phase I; intended to evaluate the efficacy of a treatment for the condition it is intended to treat; possible side effects are monitored phase III, phase III clinical trial - a large clinical trial of a treatment or drug that in phase I and phase II has been shown to be efficacious with tolerable side effects; after successful conclusion of these clinical trials it will receive formal approval from the FDA phase IV, phase IV clinical trial - sometimes the FDA approves a drug for general use but requires the manufacturer to continue to monitor its effects; during this phase the drug may be tried on slightly different patient populations than those studied in earlier trials