"What gets measured, gets managed" is an adage that doctors know all too well. Physicians routinely monitor diseases by measuring biological factors such as cholesterol or blood pressure. And clinical trials are starting to use such indirect measures as 'surrogate markers' of a treatment's effect on the disease in clinical trials (see page 510). The practice has helped to get drugs to market quickly by allowing researchers to perform rapid and easy measurements rather than waiting for long-term clinical outcomes such as heart attacks or strokes.
展开▼
