8 Clinical trials and research

8.3 Why trials are important

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Modern medicine is often called 'evidence-based medicine'. This is because it is based on treatments or strategies that have been proven to show an advantage compared to other approaches.

Well-designed studies can produce results that can be carefully studied, and often repeated in similar studies. Without trial results, treatment decisions would only be based on guesswork, on the hope that a treatment works, on untypical results or on commercial marketing.

Hard evidence is needed to know how to improve care.

Trials can show which drugs are better than others. For example, the higher risk of side effects when using d4T compared to tenofovir in first-line therapy.

Trials can show which strategies are better than others - for example that combinations that include three drugs are better that combinations with two drugs.