In a parallel trial, what does each patient receive?

In a parallel trial, each patient receives only one study therapy throughout the duration of the trial. This design involves multiple groups of participants, where each group receives a different treatment or intervention, but each individual is assigned to only one of those treatment groups. This allows researchers to compare the effects of the different therapies on outcomes without mixing treatments within individual participants.

The focus on giving one therapy per participant helps to provide clear results regarding the efficacy and safety of that specific treatment, while avoiding confounding variables that may arise from simultaneous therapies or combination treatments. This method is widely used in clinical trials to ascertain how well a particular therapy performs when isolated from others, contributing to the integrity and clarity of the trial's findings.