Surrogate outcomes are measures that are used in clinical trials or other research studies as substitutes for clinical endpoints, which are the actual outcomes that matter to patients, such as survival, disease progression, symptom relief, or quality of life.
Surrogate outcomes are usually intermediate or surrogate markers that are thought to be reasonably associated with the clinical endpoints, and they are often used as a proxy to predict or estimate the effect of the intervention on the clinical endpoint. Surrogate outcomes may be laboratory tests, imaging studies, or other objective or subjective measures that are related to the disease process or treatment mechanism.
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