Line Frazier and Mosteller assert that medical research could be improved by a move toward larger, simpler clinical trials of medical treatments. Currently, researchers collect far more background information (5) on patients than is strictly required for their trials— substantially more than hospitals collect—thereby escalating costs of data collection, storage, and analysis. Although limiting information collection could increase the risk that researchers will overlook (10) facts relevant to a study, Frazier and Mosteller contend that such risk, never entirely eliminable from research, would still be small in most studies. Only in research on entirely new treatments are new and unexpected variables likely to arise. (15) Frazier and Mosteller propose not only that researchers limit data collection on individual patients but also that researchers enroll more patients in clinical trials, thereby obtaining a more representative sample of the total population with (20) the disease under study. Often researchers restrict study participation to patients who have no ailments besides those being studied. A treatment judged successful under these ideal conditions can then be evaluated under normal conditions. Broadening the (25) range of trial participants, Frazier and Mosteller suggest, would enable researchers to evaluate a treatment’s efficacy for diverse patients under various conditions and to evaluate its effectiveness for different patient subgroups. For example, the value (30) of a treatment for a progressive disease may vary according to a patient’s stage of disease. Patients’ ages may also affect a treatment’s efficacy. It can be inferred from the passage that a study limited to patients like those mentioned in lines 20-22 would have which of the following advantages over the kind of study proposed by Frazier and Mosteller
A.It would yield more data and its findings would be more accurate. B.It would cost less in the long term, though it would be more expensive in its initial stages. C.It would limit the number of variables researchers would need to consider when evaluating the treatment under study. D.It would help researchers to identify subgroups of patients with secondary conditions that might also be treatable. E.It would enable researchers to assess the value of an experimental treatment for the average patient.