With most elective cardiovascular procedures at a standstill during the COVID-19 pandemic, academic and industry-sponsored clinical research has ground to halt. Even if a trial hasn't been officially paused, it falls way, way down on the list of priorities for overburdened healthcare systems shutting down nonessential services to deal with the mounting crisis.
For researchers leading these large-scale randomized controlled trials, the pandemic has spawned a secondary disaster, sending them scrambling to either close out studies or continue to try to follow the thousands of patients enrolled around the world.
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