Chocolate trial proves hard to resist

17 May 2013

As part of International Clinical Trials Day, West Middlesex University Hospital invited people to take part in a special just-for-fun chocolate trial, which proved unsurprisingly popular!

As part of International Clinical Trials Day,West Middlesex University Hospital invited people to take part in a special just-for-fun chocolate trial, which proved unsurprisingly popular!

Almost a hundred people took part in the experiment, which was used to illustrate the principles of clinical trials. Eager volunteers were taken through a similar process to an actual clinical trial, and given a bar of either milk or white chocolate, courtesy of Tesco Twickenham Extra, to eat to see which was the most satisfying. Thankfully there were no placebos in this trial!

Dr Essam Ramhamadany, Assistant Director of Research & Development at the hospital, explained more: “Clinical trials, also called clinical research, help us to improve treatments and healthcare for patients.West Middlesexis very active in this field, currently participating in 55 clinical research studies led by 23 consultants, and we are currently recruiting to 38 of these. In 2012/13 we recruited over 715 patients into National Institute for Health Research registered studies which are funded by the NIHR (National Institute of Health Research) North West London CLRN (Comprehensive Local Research Network) and NIHR CLAHRC (Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care).

"We are conducting research in many different areas including cancer, medicine, maternity, dermatology, paediatrics, radiology and anaesthetics. By taking part in clinical research you are helping to improve the NHS for future patients.”

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