Surrogate endpoint

In <a href="/facts/Clinical_trial/q8LMr832">clinical trials</a>, a surrogate endpoint (or surrogate marker) is a <a href="/facts/Outcome_measure/ennf2Ftk">measure of effect</a> of a specific treatment that may correlate with a real <a href="/facts/Clinical_endpoint/1I7oM6j3">clinical endpoint</a> but does not necessarily have a guaranteed relationship. The <a href="/facts/National_Institutes_of_Health/G3Eytfcc">National Institutes of Health</a> (USA) defines surrogate endpoint as "a <a href="/facts/Biomarker/nk2LgXtq">biomarker</a> intended to substitute for a clinical endpoint".
Surrogate markers are used when the primary endpoint is undesired (e.g., death), or when the number of events is very small, thus making it impractical to conduct a clinical trial to gather a <a href="/facts/Statistical_significance/PMxjdlAu">statistically significant</a> number of endpoints. The <a href="/facts/Food_and_Drug_Administration/rCEnh9WB">FDA</a> and other regulatory agencies will often accept evidence from <a href="/facts/Clinical_trial/q8LMr832">clinical trials</a> that show a direct clinical benefit to surrogate markers.
Surrogate endpoints can be obtained from different modalities, such as, behavioural or cognitive scores, or <a href="/facts/Biomarker/nk2LgXtq">biomarkers</a> from <a href="/facts/Electroencephalography/XGvpcBl5">Electroencephalography</a> (<a href="/facts/Quantitative_electroencephalography/PYIjRCDm">qEEG</a>), <a href="/facts/MRI/Vh9yG9qq">MRI</a>, <a href="/facts/Positron_emission_tomography/5SmcW6qz">PET</a>, or biochemical biomarkers.
A correlate does not make a surrogate. It is a common misconception that if an outcome is a correlate (that is, correlated with the true clinical outcome) it can be used as a valid surrogate endpoint (that is, a replacement for the true clinical outcome). However, proper justification for such replacement requires that the effect of the intervention on the surrogate endpoint predicts the effect on the clinical outcome: a much stronger condition than correlation. In this context, the term Prentice criteria is used.
The term "surrogate" should not be used in describing endpoints. Instead, descriptions of results and interpretations should be formulated in terms that designate the specific nature and category of variable assessed.
A surrogate endpoint of a clinical trial is a laboratory measurement or a physical sign used as a substitute for a clinically meaningful endpoint that measures directly how a patient feels, functions or survives. Changes induced by a therapy on a surrogate endpoint are expected to reflect changes in a clinically meaningful endpoint.

Surrogate endpoint open-in-new

Surrogate endpoint