an innocuous or inert medication; given as a pacifier or to the control group in experiments on the efficacy of a drug
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(Roman Catholic Church) vespers of the office for the dead
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Placebo \Pla*ce"bo\, n. [L., I shall please, fut. of placere to please.] 1. (R. C. Ch.) The first antiphon of the vespers for the dead.
2. (Med.) A prescription with no pharmacological activity given to a patient to humor or satisfy the desire for medical treatment.
3. (Med.) a dose of a compound having no pharmacological activity given to a subject in a medical experiment as part of a control experiment in a test of the effectiveness of another, active pharmacological agent. [PJC]
{To sing placebo}, to agree with one in his opinion; to be complaisant to. --Chaucer.
But 10 patients of the 56 who received a placebo developed the disease.
Of those who took the hormone tablets, 60% said their appetite and food intake improved while only about 40% of those who took the placebo reported such improvements, the researchers reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Doctors at the McGill Center for Studies in Aging found that 20 patients given the drug fared about as well as 19 patients taking a placebo in four different tests of their memory, mental status, behavior and ability to function.
Horwitz's analysis of the study found that those who took their medicine _ placebo or drug _ had a higher survival rate than those who did not.
Of those who took the hormone for the minimum 10 weeks of the experiment, 16% had a weight gain of 15 pounds or more while only 2% of those who took the placebo had such a weight gain.
Heart attack victims given ramipril, a drug derived from the venom of the Brazilian pit viper, are 27 per cent more likely to survive than those given a placebo, according to an article by researchers in the British medical journal Lancet.
Half of those in the study received AZT and the others received placebo.
The study is double-blind, meaning neither doctors nor patients know who is getting vaccine and who is injected with a placebo. During follow-ups, Wallack will compare the cancer recurrence and survival rates of the two groups of patients.
The third involved about 350 patients and found 84 percent of those given additional treatment cancer-free after three years compared with 67 percent of those given a placebo.
By contrast, the placebo patients had an average drop of 4% in cholesterol levels and only 39% had evidence that the buildup of the deposits had been halted or reversed.
Another quarter of the doctors cited a "placebo" effect as justification.
The original paper, by Charles D. Bluestone and colleagues at the Otitis Media Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, concluded that amoxicillin is about twice as likely to cure middle-ear infections as a placebo.
Seizures that occurred in patients receiving GLIADEL(R) had a much earlier onset, although the incidence of seizures was the same in the placebo and GLIADEL(R) groups.
He has heard similar praise from members of his control group, who unknowingly received a placebo.
Even with the placebo, no change in pain sensitivity appeared in seven of the eight other veterans.
But Dr. Jewett and his colleagues determined that patients undergoing the tests couldn't tell the difference between active allergens and a dummy or placebo solution used as a control.
A study released Monday in the May 15 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine said people who took AZT were more than twice as likely not to develop AIDS or AIDS-related complex than those who received a placebo.
For two consecutive six-month periods, they used aerosol amiloride or a placebo.
An estimated 8 percent of AIDS patients being tested died while on the drug, compared with 40 percent who died while taking a placebo during a nine-month test period.
In reality, the only way a drug vs. placebo clinical trial can be justified is if the efficacy of the drug is sufficiently equivocal that its benefit is thought to be about as good as or perhaps slightly better than no treatment at all.
Furthermore, "compassionate use" conflicts with the manufacturer's FDA-mandated efforts to put patients into double-blind tests, in which some patients get the drug and some get a useless placebo.
A placebo was given to 351 people while AZT was given to 360.
But, Dr. Blankenhorn said, the experiment's steering committee saw so much improvement in the arteries of Mevacor-taking patients at the two-year point that the committee recommended the control patients be taken off the placebo and put on Mevacor.
The so-called double-blind tests, in which onethird of participants are injected with a placebo, are expected to conclude by year's end.
In a control group of 137 that received a placebo, 16 died.
In its original TIMI report, the NIH said TPA would next be tested against a placebo; later, citing ethical reasons, the researchers dropped the placebo and now all heart patients in the TIMI trial are receiving TPA.
In its original TIMI report, the NIH said TPA would next be tested against a placebo; later, citing ethical reasons, the researchers dropped the placebo and now all heart patients in the TIMI trial are receiving TPA.
Of those given aspirin but a placebo in place of SK, 447 died.
In two large trials involving 1,146 patients, only 48 people on Rifabutin developed MAC, compared with 102 on placebo.
Women in the 1988 study received vaginal suppositories containing progesterone for two months, followed or preceded by two months of treatment with a placebo.