Page 30 - 78 glossary of hivaids-related terms_opt

Clinical Practice Guidelines
Recommendations by panels of expert health care practitioners
designed to assist clinicians and patients in making decisions about
C
appropriate health care for specific diseases and conditions.

Clinical Progression
A term for the overall progression of a disease as measured by
deterioration of clinical outcomes. In an HIV-infected person, clinical
progression may be defined as the occurrence or recurrence of
HIV-related events (after at least 3 months on an antiretroviral
regimen), excluding immune reconstitution syndromes. HIV-infected
patients who have a CD4 T-cell count less than 100 cells/mm are
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considered to have a high likelihood of clinical progression.

Clinical Trial
A research study that uses human volunteers to answer specific
health questions. Carefully conducted clinical trials are regarded
as the fastest and safest way to find effective treatments for
diseases and conditions as well as other ways to improve health.
Interventional trials use controlled conditions to determine whether
experimental treatments or new ways of using known treatments
are safe and effective. Observational trials gather information about
health issues from groups of people in their natural settings. Clinical
trials may be prospective (studying data from a time point forward)
or retrospective (studying data from collected records in the past).

ClinicalTrials.gov
An online, searchable database of information about clinical trials
sponsored by governments, pharmaceutical companies, and other
organizations. This database is managed by the National Institutes
of Health (NIH) through its National Library of Medicine (NLM).
http://www.clinicaltrials.gov
See Also: Clinical Trial

28 HIV/AIDS Glossary