Illustrated Glossary of Organic Chemistry

Placebo: A substance without therapeutic benefit given instead of the drug being tested in a clinical trial. This is done to ensure that trial participants -- both the trial's subjects/patients and administrators -- are unaware of which subjects are receiving the drug being tested and which are not. Such knowledge might bias interpretation of the data produced by the clinical trial.




Paclitaxel
Anticancer drug undergoing clinical trial.
  
Sucrose
A placebo. Has no anticancer effects.
In a clinical trial of the anticancer drug paclitaxel, some patients will receive the therapeutically-active drug while other patients will receive a therapeutically-inactive placebo such as sucrose.