| Health / Medical Topics |
Surrogate endpoint
Pronunciation
Definition 1
In clinical trials, an indicator or sign used in place of another to tell if a treatment works. Surrogate endpoints include a shrinking tumor or lower biomarker levels. They may be used instead of stronger indicators, such as longer survival or improved quality of life, because the results of the trial can be measured sooner. The use of surrogate endpoints in clinical trials may allow earlier approval of new drugs to treat serious or life-threatening diseases, such as cancer. Surrogate endpoints are not always true indicators or signs of how well a treatment works. (NCI Dictionary)
Definition 2
A biomarker that is intended to substitute for a clinical endpoint. A surrogate endpoint is expected to predict clinical benefit (or harm or lack of benefit or harm) based on epidemiologic, therapeutic, pathophysiologic, or other scientific evidence. The term surrogate endpoint applies primarily to endpoints in therapeutic intervention trials; however, it may sometimes apply in natural history or epidemiologic studies. The use of biomarkers as surrogate endpoints in a clinical trial requires the specification of the clinical endpoints that are being substituted, class of therapeutic intervention being applied, and characteristics of population and disease state in which the substitution is being made. (NCI Thesaurus)
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
