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Source– This post on Randomised control trials technique transformed TB care is based on the article “Randomised control trials: the technique that transformed TB care” published in “The Hindu” on 19th April 2024.
Why in the News?
Clinical trials performed using the randomisation technique have been instrumental in shaping modern medicine.
How randomisation technique transformed TB care
1. Clinical trials utilizing randomization have profoundly impacted modern medicine by providing a reliable and impartial means to assess treatment efficacies.
2. These trials are foundational to various medical advancements, such as understanding aspirin’s preventative role against heart attacks, crafting antiretroviral therapies for HIV, employing cognitive behavioral therapy for mental disorders, and developing the latest COVID-19 vaccines.
3. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were used to test streptomycin, marking it as the first effective antibiotic treatment against tuberculosis (TB). Sir Austin Bradford Hill is credited with the work.
4. This transition changed TB management from a specialized surgical concern to a broadly accessible primary care matter.
5. Beyond TB, Hill’s legacy continues with the ‘Bradford Hill Criteria,’ which are fundamental in modern epidemiology.
These nine criteria strength, consistency, specificity, temporality, biological gradient, plausibility, coherence, experiment, and analogy establish a structured approach to confirming causal relationships between specific factors and health outcomes.
6. This framework has been instrumental in identifying alcohol as a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases and linking sugar-sweetened beverages with obesity.
7. Hill’s criteria were crucial in proving the connection between smoking and lung cancer, countering the misinformation spread by the tobacco industry.
8. This research also influenced a major shift in public health policies and the general public’s view on tobacco use.
About the Randomised control trials technique
RCTs involve dividing a population into smaller groups, in order to comparatively see the outcomes of an external stimulus.
For ex- If the aim of a study is to understand whether a free grains distribution scheme helped improve the nutrition levels among people living in a district, researchers will first create two groups within the population, and then put people into those groups randomly.
One group (called the control group) does not receive the grains or the external stimulus, while the other group (treatment group) does. After a designated period of time, details of how both the groups are doing would be collected. In this way, the goal is to understand what the overall impact is of introducing something new could be.
Read more: What are randomized controlled trials, how do they work?
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