Abstract
Background: the Western community is currently increasingly involved in the problems of patients with chronic diseases. the wish to deal with such problems gives rise to new endpoints in medical research.Results: (1) Priority will have to be given to subjective rather than objective endpoints. (2) Such endpoints will imply an ethical obligation to value palliation on a high priority rather than improvement of objective disease variables. (3) Such research can be done effectively only when investigators emphasize the human touch rather than scientific rigor. (4) In patients studied for chronic diseases dignity and respect for the aging have frequently a higher priority than the informed consent rule. (5) Such studies because of their subjective endpoints can benefit from specific designs that enable test-persons to express their own preference for one of the treatments being tested.Conclusions: the focus of chronic diseases is on risk factors and symptomatic treatments rather than causation and cu.re. Priority is the patient as an individual rather than the disease. the issues of research addressing this increasingly important field haveto account for such priorities.
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