5.1

Frazier and Mosteller assert that medical
research could be improved by a move toward
larger, simpler clinical trials of medical treatments.
Currently, researchers collect far more background
information on patients than is strictly required for
their trials—substantially more than hospitals
collect—thereby escalating costs of data
collection, storage, and analysis. Although limiting
information collection could increase the risk that
researchers will overlook facts relevant to a study,
Frazier and Mosteller contend that such risk, never
entirely eliminable from research, would still be
small in most studies. Only in research on entirely
new treatments are new and unexpected variables
likely to arise.
Frazier and Mosteller propose not only that
researchers limit data collection on individual
patients but also that researchers enroll more
patients in clinical trials, thereby obtaining a more
representative sample of the total population with
the disease under study. Often researchers restrict
study participation to patients who have no
ailments besides those being studied. A treatment
judged successful under these ideal conditions can
then be evaluated under normal conditions.
Broadening the range of trial participants, Frazier
and Mosteller suggest, would enable researchers to
evaluate a treatment's efficacy for diverse patients
under various conditions and to evaluate its
effectiveness for different patient subgroups. For
example, the value of a treatment for a progressive
disease may vary according to a patient's stage of
disease. Patients' ages may also affect a
treatment's efficacy.


99. The passage is primarily concerned with
(A) identifying two practices in medical research
that may affect the accuracy of clinical trials
(B) describing aspects of medical research that
tend to drive up costs
(C) evaluating an analysis of certain shortcomings
of current medical research practices
(D) describing proposed changes to the ways in
which clinical trials are conducted
(E) explaining how medical researchers have
traditionally conducted clinical trials and how
such trials are likely to change


100. Which of the following can be inferred from the
passage about a study of the category of patients
?
(A) Its findings might have limited applicability.
(B) It would be prohibitively expensive in its attempt
to create ideal conditions.
(C) It would be the best way to sample the total
population of potential patients.
(D) It would allow researchers to limit information
collection without increasing the risk that
important variables could be overlooked.
(E) Its findings would be more accurate if it
concerned treatments for a progressive disease
than if it concerned treatments

101. It can be inferred from the passage that a study
limited to patients like those mentioned in lines 21–23
would have which of the following advantages over the
kind of study proposed by Frazier and Mosteller?
(A) It would yield more data and its findings would
be more accurate.
(B) It would cost less in the long term, though it
would be more expensive in its initial stages.
(C) It would limit the number of variables
researchers would need to consider when
evaluating the treatment under study.
(D) It would help researchers to identify subgroups
of patients with secondary conditions that might
also be treatable.
(E) It would enable researchers to assess the value
of an experimental treatment for the average
patient.


102. The author mentions patients' ages (line 33) primarily
in order to
(A) identify the most critical variable differentiating
subgroups of patients
(B) cast doubt on the advisability of implementing
Frazier and Mosteller's proposals about medical
research
(C) indicate why progressive diseases may require
different treatments at different stages
(D) illustrate a point about the value of enrolling a
wide range of patients in clinical trials
(E) substantiate an argument about the problems
inherent in enrolling large numbers of patients in
clinical trials


103. According to the passage, which of the following
describes a result of the way in which researchers
generally conduct clinical trials?
(A) They expend resources on the storage of
information likely to be irrelevant to the study
they are conducting.
(B) They sometimes compromise the accuracy of
their findings by collecting and analyzing more
information than is strictly required for their
trials.
(C) They avoid the risk of overlooking variables that
might affect their findings, even though doing so
raises their research costs.
(D) Because they attempt to analyze too much
information, they overlook facts that could
emerge as relevant to their studies.
(E) In order to approximate the conditions typical of
medical treatment, they base their methods of
information collection on those used by hospitals.