Frazier and Mosteller assert that medical research could be improved by a move toward larger, simpler clinical trials of medical treatments. Currently, researchers collect far more background information on patients than is strictly required for their trials — substantially more than hospitals collect — thereby escalating costs of data collection, storage, and analysis. Although limiting information collection could increase the risk that researchers will overlook facts relevant to a study, Frazier and Mosteller contend that such risk, never entirely eliminable from research, would still be small in most studies. Only in research on entirely new treatments are new and unexpected variables likely to arise.
Frazier and Mosteller propose not only that researchers limit data collection on individual patients but also that researchers enroll more patients in clinical trials, thereby obtaining a more representative sample of the total population with the disease under study. Often researchers restrict study participation to patients who have no ailments besides those being studied. A treatment judged successful under these ideal conditions can then be evaluated under normal conditions. Broadening the range of trial participants, Frazier and Mosteller suggest, would enable researchers to evaluate a treatment’s efficacy for diverse patients under various conditions and to evaluate its effectiveness for different patient subgroups. For example, the value of a treatment for a progressive disease may vary according to a patient’s stage of disease. Patients’ ages may also affect a treatment’s efficacy.
1. The passage is primarily concerned with
(A) identifying two practices in medical research that may affect the accuracy of clinical trials
(B) describing aspects of medical research that tend to drive up costs
(C) evaluating an analysis of certain shortcomings of current medical research practices
(D) describing proposed changes to the ways in which clinical trials are conducted
(E) explaining how medical researchers have traditionally conducted clinical trials and how such trials are likely to change
2. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage about a study of the category of patients referred to in lines 20 - 22 [
Often researchers restrict study participation to patients who have no ailments besides those being studied.]?
(A) Its findings might have limited applicability.
(B) It would be prohibitively expensive in its attempt to create ideal conditions.
(C) It would be the best way to sample the total population of potential patients.
(D) It would allow researchers to limit information collection without increasing the risk that important variables could be overlooked.
(E) Its findings would be more accurate if it concerned treatments for a progressive disease than if it concerned treatments for a nonprogressive disease.
3. It can be inferred from the passage that a study limited to patients like those mentioned in lines 20-22 [
Often researchers restrict study participation to patients who have no ailments besides those being studied.] would have which of the following advantages over the kind of study proposed by Frazier and Mosteller?
(A) It would yield more data and its findings would be more accurate.
(B) It would cost less in the long term, though it would be more expensive in its initial stages.
(C) It would limit the number of variables researchers would need to consider when evaluating the treatment under study.
(D) It would help researchers to identify subgroups of patients with secondary conditions that might also be treatable.
(E) It would enable researchers to assess the value of an experimental treatment for the average patient.
4. The author mentions
patients' ages primarily in order to
A. identify the most critical variable differentiating subgroups of patients
B. cast doubt on the advisability of implementing Frazier and Mosteller's proposals about medical research
C. indicate why progressive diseases may require different treatments at different stages
D. illustrate a point about the value of enrolling a wide range of patients in clinical trials
E. substantiate an argument about the problems inherent in enrolling large numbers of patients in clinical trials
5. According to the passage, which of the following describes a result of the way in which researchers generally conduct clinical trials?
(A) They expend resources on the storage of information likely to be irrelevant to the study they are conducting.
(B) They sometimes compromise the accuracy of their findings by collecting and analyzing more information than is strictly required for their trials.
(C) They avoid the risk of overlooking variables that might affect their findings, even though doing so raises their research costs.
(D) Because they attempt to analyze too much information, they overlook facts that could emerge as relevant to their studies.
(E) In order to approximate the conditions typical of medical treatment, they base their methods of information collection on those used by hospitals.
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04 Sep 2020, 00:28
