Therapeutic or Preventive Procedure
placebo
pla·ce·bo [ pluh-see-boh ]
Subclass of:
Pharmaceutical Preparations;
Therapeutic procedure
Etymology:
Latin placebo, first person singular of the future indicative of the verb placere = to please (i.e., "I will please").
Definitions related to placebos:
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A pharmaceutical preparation that does not contain the investigational agent and is generally prepared to be physically indistinguishable from the preparation containing the investigational product.CDISC TerminologyClinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC), 2021
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An inactive substance or treatment that looks the same as, and is given the same way as, an active drug or treatment being tested. The effects of the active drug or treatment are compared to the effects of the placebo.NCI Dictionary of Cancer TermsU.S. National Cancer Institute, 2021
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An inactive substance, treatment or procedure that is intended to provide baseline measurements for the experimental protocol of a clinical trial.NCI ThesaurusU.S. National Cancer Institute, 2021
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Pills, injections, or treatments missing the active component of interest, administered to experimental control groups to correct for nonspecific effects.CRISP ThesaurusNational Institutes of Health, 2006
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Any dummy medication or treatment. Although placebos originally were medicinal preparations having no specific pharmacological activity against a targeted condition, the concept has been extended to include treatments or procedures, especially those administered to control groups in clinical trials in order to provide baseline measurements for the experimental protocol.NLM Medical Subject HeadingsU.S. National Library of Medicine, 2021
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Placebos are inactive substances or interventions, most often used in controlled studies for comparison with potentially active drugs.Merck & Co., Inc., 2020
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Placebo, an inert, or dummy, drug. Placebos are sometimes prescribed for maladies with no known scientific treatment or in cases in which an ailment has not yet been diagnosed. They are also used in tests involving responses to new drugs. In a blind test the patient does not know whether he or she...Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 2020
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