Tuesday 1 April 2008

Study acronyms, where will it end?

News on the Merck/Schering ENHANCE study popped into my inbox today, and the explanation of where the acronym ENHANCE came from gave me a wry smile.

As you would have no doubt have guessed, ENHANCE stands for
Ezetimibe aNd simvastatin in Hypercholesterolemia enhANces atherosClerosis rEgression
Obvious really.

We need some rules on these acronyms. The FDA don't seem to be approving many molecules, so maybe they could get stuck in here.

Sticking the word 'enhance' in the title and picking out the middle two letters is bad enough, but the N in the middle of an 'and' while ignoring anything out of 'simvistatin'?
Apart from that I'm aware of at least one other trial with the same acronym. Surely not a case of clumsy marketing?
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