Biomarkers in COPD: the search continues!

Extract

In a working group of the National Institutes of Health focusing on biomarkers and surrogate end-points, a biomarker was defined as a “characteristic that is objectively measured and evaluated as an indicator of normal biologic processes, pathogenic processes, or pharmacologic responses to a therapeutic intervention” [1]. In the same document, the National Institutes of Health defined a clinical end-point as “a characteristic or variable that reflects how a patient feels, functions, or survives” and a surrogate end-point as a “biomarker that is intended to substitute for a clinical endpoint. A surrogate endpoint is expected to predict clinical benefit (or harm or lack of benefit or harm) based on epidemiologic, therapeutic, pathophysiologic, or other scientific evidence” [1].