Why are clinical trials needed?

The only way to really know if a medicine or treatment works is by studying them very carefully. A new treatment may be better than an existing one, and to determine this matter a clinical trial will be necessary.

Clinical trials are important studies in which doctors and researchers compare treatments. In case there is no prior treatment for the disease that we want to treat, we will compare it to a placebo, a simulation of a treatment.

Doctors and researchers carefully study the data collected during the investigation to find out if a treatment is effective, safe and how it should be administered correctly in children and teenagers.

To decide the level of effectiveness of a treatment we need:

• To know the effect it has on the body of teenagers like you.

• To know that it is safe and that the side effects are minimal compared to the benefits.

Clinical trials are very important for patients, but it is extremely important to study treatments for teenagers because many of them have only been studied with adults.

Teenagers and adults often have different health problems, so treatments can work and react differently, and, consequently, have different side effects.

Clinical trials are conducted to study and test new treatments, but they may also be used to study the possibility of combining treatments in order to make them work better.