Infectious Diseases and HIV Conference

Clinical studies and case reports are critical in building knowledge on infectious diseases and clinical outcomes. Such studies thus provide rich information regarding the mechanisms of disease, treatment efficacy, and rare or complex presentations, guiding evidence-based medical practice.

This session focuses on the role of clinical studies and case reports in the management of infectious diseases, with an emphasis on the latest findings and important cases that have shaped medical knowledge.

Clinical studies are the back bone of medical research, based on randomized control studies, observational and cohort studies, which give solid evidence for the safety and efficacy of a therapeutic intervention.

For infectious diseases, such studies provide evidence regarding the best regime of treatment for the disease, the protective effects of preventive vaccines, and new therapeutic agents against infections. We discuss this week the types of clinical studies, which include considerations that must be observed for their design, as well as what contribution they make to the development of guidelines for treatment.

While clinical studies can give one an idea about what to expect at a population level, detailed descriptions of individual patient cases really portray the richness of case reports.

This is particularly because case reports often portray patients with unusual manifestations, rare diseases, or uncommon responses to therapy. They are extremely useful in the quest for new or emerging infections, recording adverse drug reactions, and providing elaborate accounts of diagnostic and therapeutic challenges. In this session, some of the major case reports that have shaped clinical practice in the management of infectious diseases will be presented and discussed and serve to prove the value of these stories in advancing medical knowledge. A brief overview of the challenges in conducting clinical research in infectious diseases-from ethical issues to patient recruitment-difficulty and complex pathogens that constantly evolve-will be covered.

The session has also touched on case reports, mentioning their lack in generalizability on what could be anecdotal, and the risk of bias, yet does urge careful interpretation and linking with higher-level findings. Evidence drawn from clinical research forms the basis for guidelines related to the management of infectious diseases-from very common conditions, such as influenza and bacterial infections, to rare and emerging infections.

This session will discuss how evidence drawn from clinical research informs guidelines related to the management of infectious diseases. Live cases of how case reports have influenced changes in clinical practice, including the revelation of new strategies for treatment or diagnostic methods, will also be presented.

Please join us in exploring how a vision of the relevance of clinical studies and case reports to infectious disease research leads toward an overview by tracing what impact such knowledge can have on development of treatment approaches and care for patients.