Understanding the gap between expectations and reality in decentralized clinical trials.

Jiang, Yale; Leng, Ye; Wu, Qing; Hou, Yiru; Dong, Xueyuan; Zeng, Caiwen; Wu, Dawei; Fang, Hong et al. · NPJ Digit Med · 2025

review · Level V

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Abstract

Decentralized clinical trials (DCTs) have gained long-standing interest, yet their adoption as a new paradigm remains uncertain even with broader acceptance from regulatory and industry. This study aims to unveil its evolutional trend, which helps answer what the current development stage DCT is located at as well as the underlying reasons. While DCTs' prime time has not arrived, we propose solutions to advance their sustainable implementation.