Clinical equipoise

Clinical equipoise (pronounced: klin-i-kal ee-kwuh-poiz) is a fundamental principle in the design and conduct of clinical trials. The term is derived from the Latin aequus, meaning equal, and poise, meaning balance.

Definition

Clinical equipoise, also known as the principle of equipoise, provides the ethical basis for medical research that involves assigning patients to different treatment arms of a clinical trial. The principle of clinical equipoise holds that there should be genuine uncertainty in the expert medical community over whether a treatment being tested is beneficial, and no subject should be deprived of potentially the best treatment.

History

The concept of clinical equipoise was first proposed by Benjamin Freedman in 1987. Freedman argued that clinical trials are ethically justifiable only if there is substantial uncertainty about which treatment is best. This uncertainty is referred to as the state of clinical equipoise.

Importance in Clinical Trials

Clinical equipoise is crucial in the design of clinical trials, as it ensures that potential participants are not exposed to inferior treatment. It is a requirement for the ethical justification of randomized controlled trials, the gold standard in medical research.

Related Terms

• Randomized Controlled Trial: A type of scientific experiment that aims to reduce bias when testing a new treatment. Patients are randomly assigned to either the group receiving the treatment under investigation or to a group receiving standard treatment.
• Informed Consent: The process in which a healthcare provider educates a patient about the risks, benefits, and alternatives of a given procedure or intervention.
• Placebo: A substance that has no therapeutic effect, used as a control in testing new drugs.

See Also

• Ethics in Clinical Research
• Clinical Trial Design
• Evidence-Based Medicine

External links

• Medical encyclopedia article on Clinical equipoise
• Wikipedia's article - Clinical equipoise

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