The Fact
A review of research on how long it takes medical discoveries to reach patients found that “it is frequently stated that it takes an average of 17 years for research evidence to reach clinical practice.” Several separate studies, measuring different points of the process, each arrived at a lag of about 17 years. The authors also found the research on these delays was measured so inconsistently that better standard measurements are needed.
What This Means
A discovery made the year a child is born may not change how doctors treat patients until that child is old enough to drive. What your doctor learned in school may be years behind what the science now shows — not because your doctor is bad, but because the pipeline from lab to exam room is slow.
Sources
- Morris, Zoë Slote, Steven Wooding, and Jonathan Grant. “The answer is 17 years, what is the question: understanding time lags in translational research.” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 104, no. 12 (2011): 510–520. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3241518/