Large Clinical Trials deliver Better Data

Jul 3, 2020 by CenTrial



In less than a month clinical scientists Martin Landray and Peter Horby delivered three conclusive results from three clinical trials, declaring the antiviral combination of lopinavir and ritonavir as ineffective, while validating the use of dexamethasone to reduce COVID deaths by one third in patients on a ventilator, and lastly showing that hydroxychloroquine had no benefit for hospitalized patients. 

So how did they become so proficient at quickly testing and verifying the trial results? The answer seems to be in the number of patients participating in their trials. Whereas trials with only 300-400 patients end up with inconclusive evidence, the three Recovery trials engaged 12,000 patients and hundreds of participating hospitals and were able to determine the tested drug's efficacies with confidence.

The University of Oxford's researchers also had the benefit of the UK's centralized National Health Service that helped to streamline the process, as opposed to the fragmented health care system in the US which has produced a dearth of results even though it has more COVID-19 cases than any other country.

The UK organizers also radically cut down on the data that they requested from health care workers, using only a few questions at enrolment, and one final question as to whether the patient died, or was released, making the trials simple and less cumbersome.

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