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Definition

noun

A measure of the effect of a treatment to indicate, reflect or substitute a clinical endpoint.

Supplement

In clinical or laboratory experiments, surrogate endpoints are used when a clinical endpoint is undesired or unethical to wait for (e.g. death) or when there are limited number of cases that a statistical test cannot be applied.

An example is CD4 cell counts as a surrogate marker for death from HIV infection.

Also called: surrogate marker

See also: clinical endpoint