FAQs

A clinical study can be of two types:

1. Clinical Trial (Interventional): A type of clinical study in which participants are assigned to groups that receive one or more intervention/treatment (or no intervention) so that researchers can evaluate the effects of the interventions on biomedical or health-related outcomes. The assignments are determined by the study's protocol. Participants may receive diagnostic, therapeutic, or other types of interventions.

2. Observational or Patient Registry: A type of clinical study in which participants are identified as belonging to study groups and are assessed for biomedical or health outcomes. Participants may receive diagnostic, therapeutic, or other types of interventions, but the investigator does not assign participants to a specific interventions/treatment.

1. Early Phase 1: A phase of research used to describe exploratory trials conducted before traditional phase 1 trials to investigate how or whether a drug affects the body. They involve very limited human exposure to the drug and have no therapeutic or diagnostic goals (for example, screening studies, microdose studies).

2. Phase 1: A phase of research to describe clinical trials that focus on the safety of a drug. They are usually conducted with healthy volunteers, and the goal is to determine the drug's most frequent and serious adverse events and, often, how the drug is broken down and excreted by the body. These trials usually involve a small number of participants.

3. Phase 2: A phase of research to describe clinical trials that gather preliminary data on whether a drug works in people who have a certain condition/disease (that is, the drug's effectiveness). For example, participants receiving the drug may be compared to similar participants receiving a different treatment, usually an inactive substance (called a placebo) or a different drug. Safety continues to be evaluated, and short-term adverse events are studied.

4. Phase 3: A phase of research to describe clinical trials that gather more information about a drug's safety and effectiveness by studying different populations and different dosages and by using the drug in combination with other drugs. These studies typically involve more participants.

5. Phase 4: A phase of research to describe clinical trials occurring after FDA has approved a drug for marketing. They include postmarket requirement and commitment studies that are required of or agreed to by the study sponsor. These trials gather additional information about a drug's safety, efficacy, or optimal use.

There are approximately 600 ongoing clinical studies at UAB. This number is variable as every day there are new studies that become available at UAB and few studies that close after successful enrollment.

XpertMatch (%) is a proprietary score provided by XpertDox that reflects how closely the clinical study matches your query. A clinical study with low score could still be a good fit for you and vice-versa, a clinical study with high score may not be a good fit for you.

XpertDox is a healthcare data analytics company dedicated to improving patient access to clinical trials. XpertDox has partnered with University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), to build a database and search engine for all ongoing clinical trials at UAB with the goal of improving patient access to clinical trials.