Final answer:
Clinical outcomes are essential as they directly represent the impact of a treatment on a patient's life, making them more important than surrogate markers, which only provide indirect estimates of a treatment's effectiveness.
Step-by-step explanation:
The statement is referring to clinical outcomes, which are more important than surrogate markers. Clinical outcomes are the end results that matter most to patients, such as improvement in symptoms, quality of life, or survival rates. Surrogate markers, on the other hand, are indirect measures used to predict these clinical outcomes, such as blood pressure levels or cholesterol readings. They are valuable for providing quick, preliminary data, but they may not fully capture the actual benefits or risks to a patient.
For example, in the treatment of a disease like diabetes, a decrease in blood glucose levels is a surrogate marker. However, the clinical outcomes such as reduced risk of complications (e.g., neuropathy, retinopathy, cardiovascular disease) are the ultimate goal and are more significant measures of the success of a treatment.