medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...

, a natural history study is a study that follows a group of people over time who have, or are at risk of developing, a specific medical condition or disease. A natural history study collects health information over time to understand how the medical condition or disease develops and to give insight into how it might be treated. A natural history study is often submitted when applying to the

FDA The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a federal agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of food s ...

or other regulatory agency as a baseline, to show the disease course for untreated patients. The natural history data is compared to the disease course of patients given a proposed therapy to show the effects of the therapy.

External links

Natural history study
entry in the public domain NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms {{NCI-cancer-dict Clinical research